Perpendicular
by nine miles to go
Summary: An examination of how MJ falls for Peter over the years (Amazing Spider-Man movie universe). Companion piece to "Lying Heart" and "Reckless". COMPLETE!
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **This is meant to be an extension or companion piece to "Lying Heart" and "Reckless," but it does stand alone. It is meant to reconcile the idea of Peter and MJ becoming an item after Gwen's regrettably inevitable end. This isn't going to read like Lying Heart and Reckless, though, because I'm planning on fewer chapters that cover a lot more ground, and it's less of a focus on the villains and more on the romantic journey.

* * *

**Perpendicular **

Nothing, in MJ's opinion, is worse than when Gwen leaves for weekend long business trips.

"You snore," MJ says petulantly across the table to one Peter Parker. "Like a tank."

He looks up at her ambivalently, his eyes still droopy with sleep, his hair sticking out in mussed, gravity-defying angles. "You're no picnic either," he says blearily, shoving his spoon back into his cereal.

"I don't _snore_."

"But you sure do talk an awful lot." He slurps his cereal in that disgusting, noisy way that only boys do, and wipes his mouth off with his shirtsleeve. "And whine."

With an indignant huff she slides out of her seat, excusing herself from the dilapidated card table that qualifies as their tiny apartment's "dining room." As a former theater major at twenty-three she considers herself lucky to even be able to pay rent on a New York apartment, luckier still to be living with her best friend, but unfortunately Peter Parker is part of that package deal.

Although she'd never admit it, sometimes it is nice to have him here. Gwen works normal hours, nine to five, and MJ always, always, always works at night, whether it's for some off-off-Broadway show that's paying her dirt, or for some nightclub as a promo girl for Budweiser where she makes her _real_ money, but since Peter works such sporadic hours for the Daily Bugle she does have some company during the day time, at the very least.

That brief sentimentality is, of course, ruined the moment he opens his big nerdy mouth.

"Am I allowed to ask why you're wearing a helmet and aviators in the middle of July?"

She plops her plate in the sink and waits for the water to heat up so she can wash it off, almost wistful for the days back in Queens when she lived with her dad and had a functioning dishwasher. _Almost_.

"I have an audition," she says airily, flipping her hair back from under the helmet. "For Amelia Earhart."

"Word to the wise? Amelia Earhart probably didn't wear floofy pink dresses."

"I was going to _change_," MJ snaps, even though she hadn't been planning to, but unfortunately the twerp had a point.

She leaves the kitchen in a huff, to the tiny room that barely fits a mattress and hanging rack for all her clothes. It's a mess in here, a total catastrophe, but who can really blame her? The room is so tiny that there's no orderly way to arrange her stuff. Well, maybe if she were as tidy as Gwen she would figure it out, but how Gwen has the time or patience for that is beyond her.

She starts shoving hangers on the rack this way and that, trying to find a more suitable outfit option. It really does suck that Gwen totally ditched her with Peter for the weekend. He's the biggest bore on the planet, which is fine by MJ so long as Gwen is around to diffuse it, but apparently Peter had some bogus work reason for not flying down there with her and now MJ's stuck with him.

She finds a pair of skinny jeans jammed into the corner of the bed and pairs it with combat boots and some old dark green jacket, hoping it looks a little more legitimate for the occasion. In actuality she is grateful to Gwen, and begrudgingly grateful to Peter, too. She was maybe a few hours away from getting her ass evicted from the tiny apartment she was inhabiting in Brooklyn two years ago, after the three of them had all graduated, and Gwen had offered to let her live with the two of them in the spare room/closet instead of crawling back to her father's place. Gwen is one of the few people on the planet who knows what kind of shit she'd be coming home to, and how desperate she would have to be if living with her father again were her last option.

After she laces up the boots she checks the time on her cell phone. "Shit, shit," she mutters, bounding out of her room to the kitchen, where Peter is still reading the paper.

He looks up at her and raises his eyebrows. "You're aware that it's ninety-five degrees outside," he says, holding up the weather section the way she has only ever seen crusty old grandpa-types do.

"I'll suffer for my art," she says, shoving her purse onto her shoulders. "Like you and that death wish you have, hanging off buildings to take pictures of a guy in a unitard."

"He's not just a guy in a—"

"I'm late," she interrupts, wrenching the doorknob open. She stands there for a moment and says pointedly, "Well? Aren't you going to wish me luck?"

He rolls his eyes.

"You are so getting snubbed in my Oscars speech."

* * *

The truth is, MJ wants to be famous. She doesn't particularly care how, but it would be nice to be classy famous, like movie star famous or indie-singer-gone viral famous instead of that-girl-the-politician-cheated-on-his-wife-with famous. She figures she's in New York, right? So it's got to happen sometime. She's a good singer and she's a great actress. Everybody tells her so, but it doesn't really matter because she just _knows_ it—when her mom was still around she would take MJ to auditions and she would get in front of those casting directors and _shine_.

MJ knows who she is when she's in the limelight. She knows it sounds vain, especially when her best friend is some kind of super brainy scientist saving the world with stem cell research, but MJ has no patience or interest for any useful subjects like science and math. If she did maybe she would enjoy the stability of a nine to five job and a regular paycheck, but after four years of sinking into debt for a theater degree she can't really turn back now.

It isn't exactly easy. Some weeks she'll find ten auditions and get rejected for them all, which isn't nearly as bad as the weeks where she'll only find one audition, pin all her efforts to it, and get rejected from it, too.

One particularly bad day the director cuts her off in the middle of her monologue and tells her she isn't right for the part.

"Why?" she asks. She knows the system, of course, that she is supposed to bow out gracefully and thank them for their time and hit the street to never be seen again, but she's tired and her feet are practically bleeding from racing uptown to get here and she's _broke_, she _needs this job_, how is this even remotely fair?

The casting director raises an impatient eyebrow at her. "It's your look."

"You called for a _redhead_," MJ seethes, "a short, perky _redhead_. Do I need to step a little closer to the table or are you _blind?_"

It turns out that he is, in fact, partially blind, and losing his sight to an incurable genetic disease, which is just _typical_. His assistant casts her out the door muttering words about calling security, about calling her agent, and she plucks the resume she gave him off the table on her way out and says, "I'd like to see you _try_."

Once she hits the street she immediately starts to cry. She thinks to herself that New York is probably the only city in the world that is convenient for street crying, because it happens so often that nobody seems to care. She pulls herself together before she gets home, texting Gwen along the way because she needs someone in her corner because really, how could she have possibly known the guy was actually blind?

"Here," says Gwen, shoving a pint of ice cream toward her when she sinks into a chair at the kitchen table. "Mint chip will make you feel better."

MJ feels her mouth water and her heart ache a little bit. "I caaaan't," she moans.

Gwen rolls her eyes. "Live a little."

It's tempting. But MJ shook about ten pounds off to make herself more cast-able after graduation and if she let herself cheat a little bit every time she felt the sting of failure, she'd probably be morbidly obese by now.

Her phone buzzes in her pocket again and she cringes. Already three missed calls from her agent. The irony is that she's been trying to get noticed in this town since she was sixteen, and the one time she blows up in a casting director's face will probably be the only time every takes notice. Before they proceed to blacklist her professionally all over the city.

"Oh, what the hell," says MJ, grabbing the pint. Her acting career is over anyway.

By the time Peter drops by that night on his way to work, Gwen and MJ are plastered to the couch in their Empire State sweatpants and watching syndicated sitcoms, a slop of melted ice cream in two pints perched on the cushions between them.

"Hello," he says cautiously, obviously trying to determine what kind of girl-related sadness has led them to this sluggish state of being.

Gwen gives him a cheeky smile, intentionally smearing chocolate ice cream on her front teeth. "Isn't it every boy's dream to come home to two shmexy ladies draped on the couch and waiting for him?"

Peter relaxes a bit once he realizes that whatever the problem is here, his girlfriend isn't the one who is upset. He plants a kiss on Gwen's chocolaty mouth and MJ cringes.

"Get a room, guys," she groans, throwing a pillow at them.

"Not a bad idea," says Peter, raising his eyebrows at Gwen, offering his hand. She takes a moment to set the ice cream pint down on the table and then takes it, hoisting herself off the couch to follow him.

"Ew, ew, ew," MJ chants, trying to ignore the somewhat bitter churn of her too-full stomach.

Neither of them say anything as the door clicks shut behind them. MJ makes a show of covering her ears, but whatever the two of them do in there, she rarely ever hears anything coming out of the bedroom. She pulls out the remote and turns the volume up on _Friends_, curling her knees into her chest and feeling an unfamiliar pang of loneliness.

It must be nice, she thinks, to have someone who loves you like that. MJ has had three boyfriends in the last year but none of them lasted more than a month. Peter and Gwen have been going steady for almost three years. Sure, in MJ's line of work it's hard to keep any guy for long, since she can never really go out at night and the only thing she can count on is that tomorrow will probably be even more unpredictable than the day before, so she doesn't even really _want_ a boyfriend.

It's just. It must be nice, is all.

* * *

MJ ends up losing her virginity to a guy she hardly knows in a fancy hotel room above the theater where she played an extra in an opera. She figures she's twenty-three and it's pretty pathetic that she is the only virgin she knows, and besides, the guy seems nice enough, clean and well-to-do and probably about her age. The next morning she wakes up to a note from him saying that he has gone down to get some breakfast, and she uses the opportunity to throw back on yesterday's boots, leggings and chunky knit sweater and slip out unnoticed before he returns.

"You didn't come home last night," Gwen says accusingly the moment MJ walks through the door. "I called you like five times."

MJ isn't even sure which pocket of her bag her phone is in, or if she even has her phone at all. "I'm sorry," she says, "I really didn't—I'm sorry."

Gwen softens a bit, and searches MJ's face, waiting for an explanation. "Where did you go?"

"Nowhere," says MJ quickly.

Gwen's stare is incredulous, and MJ can't really blame her. MJ has never been one for keeping secrets and even if she were, she and Gwen tell each other everything, or at least MJ tells Gwen everything because it's not like Gwen has anything all that captivating to share when she's dating the biggest doofus on the planet.

"MJ," says Gwen, now looking concerned.

She shifts her weight onto her other foot, and glances into Gwen's bedroom. It's empty. Parker isn't home.

"I, uh—I had sex."

Gwen freezes, her eyes as wide as moons. "Sex?" she asks, laughing a bit, clearly taken aback with the blunt nature of MJ's announcement. "Wait—but—sex with _who?_"

"Um."

She feels her cheeks starting to burn. She isn't ashamed of herself, really. She hadn't been saving it for anybody special, because MJ isn't exactly one of those believers in soul mates or destiny or anything like that, not after growing up with no mother and a deadbeat father. But waiting this long to punch her card or whatever seems to have given this whole virginity thing a build up it doesn't deserve, and now staring into the eyes of her straight-laced, goody-two-shoes best friend, the reality of what she just did is crashing in.

Gwen gasps, entirely misinterpreting the blush on MJ's cheeks. "Do I know him? Who is it?"

MJ shakes her head. "I don't … I don't actually know," she confesses.

The smile starts sliding off of Gwen's face until it becomes kind of crooked and reminds MJ of an unhinged window. "What do you mean, you don't know?"

MJ sets her bag down on the chair and heads toward the fridge, trying to seem blasé about the whole thing. "I don't know," she says, her eyes fixated on the vegetable drawer, grateful for the cold air on her face. "I mean, he was handsome enough. Well off. He invited me for a drink after the show and then one thing led to another, and … well."

There isn't even a pause before Gwen asks, "And you didn't think to ask his _name?_"

"He must have said it." In fact, MJ knows he did, and he must have expected her to be impressed by it from the way he said it. But she had been tired and hungry and a little bit buzzed on champagne and attention so she didn't commit it to memory. "I just forgot, is all."

"And then this morning?"

"I snuck out of the hotel room." MJ giggles after she says it, because it sounds kind of absurd, even to her. The giggle sounds a little too manic, though, so she clears her throat to end it. When she turns back around with the apple she intends to make breakfast out of, Gwen is still staring at her in disbelief.

MJ unconsciously curls her shoulders forward, feeling defensive. "What?"

Gwen's mouth is open but it takes her a moment to speak. "It's just, uh—didn't you—weren't you—wasn't that your first time?"

The lie rolls off her tongue so easily. "Course not," she says, shoving the apple into her mouth and taking an ambitiously large bite. She busies herself with chewing, trying to meet Gwen's eyes and accidentally letting herself slip back to a darkened hotel room with a pair of firm, strong hands and handsome brown eyes and a muscled torso she fell asleep resting her cheek against.

Who is this guy, anyway? Why, out of all the guys she has met over the years, did she choose _him_, and then why did she run off? He was perfectly nice to her. He clearly had no idea she was a virgin. He was going downstairs to buy her _breakfast_, for Christ's sake, and that was already at least three steps higher on the effort scale than any boyfriend of the past.

"I didn't realize," says Gwen carefully.

At first MJ is afraid that Gwen is offended at the idea that she lost her virginity some time in the past and didn't tell her. But then she sees the odd posture of Gwen's hand leaning against the table and the tilt of her chin and MJ realizes that Gwen just plain doesn't believe her.

Now she feels like an idiot. She doesn't know why it was so important that she lie about this. She just didn't want it to be a big deal, and by lying about it she made it one.

"I'm going to go to take a nap," MJ says. "You know. Late night and all."

"Uh-huh," says Gwen, still staring at her as she retreats. "Well. You'll have to tell me the rest of this story later, right?"

As she opens the door to her room she feels an unexpected squeeze in her chest. "Course I will," she says, and shuts the door behind her before either of them can say anything more.

* * *

"You left the toilet seat up," says MJ accusingly one afternoon, in the brief hour before Gwen gets home from work that she and Peter are, however unfortunately, stuck in the apartment alone together. "I could have fallen in and died."

"Oh no," Peter monotones, not even glancing up from his laptop.

"And what's with the blood in the sink? If you cut yourself shaving your nonexistent facial hair at least have the decency to clean it up."

Peter doesn't answer, fixated on the glowing screen and scrolling down a web page. MJ pouts, unaccustomed to being ignored, and starts reading over his shoulder, but it turns out it's just a page with a bunch of pictures of Spiderman.

"Obsessed much?" she asks. "Guess you didn't get your fill stalking the guy all day and night, huh."

"These aren't real pictures," says Peter, more to himself than to her. He keeps scrolling, the crease between his eyebrows growing more pronounced with every photo that flits by. "They're totally fake, that's not Spiderman, and he's going to sell these to my boss."

MJ squints at the pictures, but he's scrolling so fast she can't even tell if they are quality pictures or not. "Yikes," she says, trying to be sympathetic. "There goes your paycheck."

"It's not about that," Peter snaps.

She feels her lips thinning in irritation. She knows for a fact he doesn't talk to anyone else like this. He's so nice to his aunt and Gwen and their neighbors and she bets he'd be nice to someone trying to steal his wallet but he's just a _dick_ to her.

"Somebody's panties are in a wad," she says, with the intention of irking him right back, but then he finally stops scrolling and she gets a good look. It's a clear picture of Spiderman pinning an old lady to a wall—except the old lady is caked in stage make-up and wearing an expression that looks rather ghoul-like, and there is noticeable pudge bursting from an underwear line on the Spiderman's otherwise legitimate looking costume.

MJ snorts.

"It's not funny," says Peter, snapping the laptop shut, getting up from the couch angrily.

"Aw, come on," she says, "it's pretty funny."

"They're giving Spiderman a bad rap."

"What do you care?"

"It's not—he's got enough going on with the cops after him, it's not fair," he says, sounding altogether too emotionally invested in this matter that, as far as MJ sees it, doesn't really concern him at all.

She sits on the now unoccupied couch and flicks on the television to find something to watch. "You're just mad cuz some bum is stealing your job."

The look he gives her is incredulous and condescending, and he opens his mouth to say something, visibly changes his mind and says instead, "Just forget it."

She hates this about him. She has spent her whole life trying to overcompensate and live up to expectations and for the most part it works for her, but whenever she talks to Peter he makes her feel childish and insignificant and stupid.

"Well," she says, "maybe this is a good thing. Maybe it's time to grow up and get a _real job,_ Parker."

She isn't expecting the retort to come so quickly: "_You're_ one to talk."

"Excuse me?" MJ's eyes flit over to him dangerously and he's scowling right back. "I might not be making bank, Parker, but last I checked I was actually doing something related to my larger life goals and the major I picked in college, which is a hell of a lot more than I can say for _you_."

"Larger life goals?" Peter repeats, and it sounds dumb when he says it, like he's mocking her. "Please, tell me what selling Red Bull and auditioning for fitness tapes and just short of sleeping with casting directors is—"

He doesn't finish, his eyes widening as she smacks him clear across the face. The moment after it happens there is the strangest kind of silence and MJ stands there, furious with him, and stunned with herself, her hand stinging unbearably. It was clear that he saw her hand coming and let her slap him anyway, and it's clear now that it didn't hurt him one bit.

She should say something. "You're a jerk," is the most intelligent, biting thing she can come up with.

He deflates a bit. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that." And he seems genuinely sorry, like really embarrassed about it, and suddenly MJ wonders just how much Gwen told Peter about her escapades the other night.

The lock to the door starts clicking and they both turn their heads toward the noise. Gwen is home. She doesn't know why this whole thing suddenly feels like a different kind of wrong, why it would almost feel like getting caught if she knew they were fighting, but it's evident when she looks at Peter that he's thinking the same thing.

"Just forget it," she says lowly, mimicking him.

By the time Gwen walks through the door MJ is already headed back for the couch, Peter has collected his laptop and resumed scrolling, and everyone is all smiles for the rest of the night.

* * *

Peter lays off of her for a week or so after that, and they have formal and friendly conversations in the morning for Gwen's sake and completely ignore each other whenever she isn't around, which MJ is just fine with. The opera closes so she starts selling merchandise at a concert venue, then finds a job as an understudy in an off-Broadway play, and then one day, three weeks into it, the lead gets bronchitis and the secondary lead takes her place and MJ gets to take the place of the secondary lead.

It's the closest thing to a real part she's had since college productions so she texts everyone she knows—Gwen, of course, and her friends from school, and her friends from work, and even, at the last second, her father.

"You're sure you're ready to go?" the director asks her, a little disbelieving that MJ has had the lines and blocking so well memorized that she doesn't even need a run through.

Her heart is practically dancing in her chest, the tips of her fingers electric and on fire. "Yeah," she says, peering through the curtain to an audience of hundreds. "I'm ready."

It is a great performance. MJ is _on_, staring straight out into the abyss of the blinding spotlights, flawlessly executing every one of her character's scenes after weeks of falling asleep while thinking up the lines over and over again in her head. She takes her bows with a beaming flourish, feeling a rush of pride and satisfaction that she hasn't felt in years.

In the dressing rooms backstage the rest of the ensemble congratulates her and the director walks up and gives her a pat on the back, but she can't really hear any of it in her impatience to get outside to the lobby, where she is sure her friends will be waiting for her. She practically tears out of her costume, hardly breathing in her effort to hang it back up on the rack, and bursts out of the backstage area.

There are people milling about everywhere, still coming out of the show. Nobody recognizes her, not in her street clothes anyway, so MJ throws herself into the throng, thinking that any moment her eyes will lock on to a face that she knows. Thirty seconds pass, and then a minute, but MJ persists, even poking her head outside, thinking maybe they wanted fresh air.

The crowd starts to thin and with every group that leaves MJ feels a pit in her stomach wrench ominously, and even when it's evident that nobody is here, that nobody made it for her off-Broadway debut, she lingers in the front lobby, feeling too stunned to be hurt.

"See you tomorrow, MJ."

She remembers where she is and smiles wide at one of the stagehands, waving good-bye, her mouth feeling like stretched rubber. She clutches her purse to her side and pretends to be searching for her phone, and when she actually finds it she starts pretending to dial and presses the phone up to her ear to take an imaginary call, because her hands are shaking and her face isn't doing anything she wants it to and she suddenly needs to just look busy so nobody bothers her.

She takes a few steps out of the theater. Nobody's outside except someone slouching by a streetlamp, but MJ knows that slouch, and it takes a few moments for her to really come to terms with the fact that Peter Parker is standing outside the theater and staring into the glow of his phone.

At first she thinks it's just a coincidence, that he's waiting for someone here and has no idea that she just performed a rock's throw away, but she still takes a few hesitant steps toward him and he looks up like he is expecting her.

"Hey," he says, a little stiffly. "I, uh. Gwen couldn't come, so she told me I should."

MJ stands there, not sure whether she is miserable or grateful to see him. "Oh," she says, because he hasn't really said anything about the play, and she isn't sure what to make of him being here in the first place.

"You were really good," he offers, after an awkward pause. "I mean, I don't know anything about acting, but you did a good job."

It's probably the least meaningful compliment MJ has ever received, and it's probably because she is so disappointed that nobody else came, or because she has felt somewhat like damaged goods since the whole virginity thing, or even because of some lingering guilt for smacking him a few weeks before, but she rushes forward and hugs him. He isn't expecting it and takes a step back at the impact, and he's so tall that her head almost slams against his chest, but after a moment he puts a hesitant arm around her and pats her back.

"Thank you for coming," she says, willing herself not to cry into his stupid ironic shirt.

He does not seem to sense the magnitude of this moment at all, but he pats her back one last time definitively and says, "Yeah, I mean sure. It was fun."

She pulls away from him. The street is uncharacteristically quiet. She should ask where Gwen is, or why he even decided to come in the first place, or if he knows where the rest of their friends are, but she's just too tired and confused by this whole thing to care.

She sucks in the last of her lingering urge to cry by sniffing loudly and says, "So are you going to buy me a slice of pizza or what?"

He laughs, and the tension is somewhat eased for the first time in weeks. "We can get pizza but you're buying, princess. That ticket cost me ten bucks."

"Ten bucks well spent!" she exclaims, already heading toward the pizza place across the street. "Now you'll get to tell everyone you saw the beginnings of a star in the making."

"Lucky me," he says in that dry, sarcastic way. He opens the door to let her in and it strikes her that nobody has thought to do that for her in a very long time. She smiles despite herself, thinking that maybe Peter isn't all that bad, and even though she still firmly believes that Gwen is too attractive for him, her friend could do a whole lot worse.

With a slight sting of shame she remembers that night in the hotel room in vivid detail. She can't help but sneak a sidelong glance at Peter and wonder what it must be like to be Gwen, to have someone you loved so unquestionably that everything was important, everything mattered, every first time was monumental and memorable and shared.

Peter's looking at his phone. "Gwen says she's proud of you, and she can't wait for someone else to croak so she can come see you in a role next time."

MJ laughs and watches him text her back, biting his lip in concentration, devoting his entire attention to the task. MJ has had a lot of boyfriends in the past, and seems to have a new one waiting at the door the second the old one leaves, but nothing has ever felt permanent or real.

She wonders what it would take, for it to feel that way, and for some reason she thinks of Peter, of the way he looks at Gwen when she comes home from work every day. She thinks that if any man ever looked at her the way Peter looks at Gwen, he would be the one worth fighting for.

* * *

To the reader who reviewed and said I should do a story from MJ's perspective: this is completely, entirely, unquestionably your fault.


	2. Chapter 2

**Perpendicular **

"So here you are."

When she thinks about it later it will strike her how corny, how overly romanticized that opening line is, but when she first hears it she jumps a little out of surprise and doesn't really think it through. She whirls around and immediately locks eyes with a face that takes her an excruciatingly awkward moment to place.

"Hi," she says, shifting self-consciously.

His grin is wide and easy. God, she can't for the life of her remember his name.

"Harry," he says, extending his hand, seeming to sense this. "Harry Osborn."

"Oh!" she says, "I mean, yeah, of course. I remember."

She honestly didn't think she would ever run into him again after the unlikely one night stand in the hotel room, but here he is in the flesh, in an expensive tailored suit and shoes she is sure cost more than her yearly rent. But she is singing in a hotel lounge tonight, replacing a friend who is out of town, and this is just the kind of hotel for a rich man with time and money to spare.

Now that she really takes a good look at him, though, with his impish grin and suggestive eyes, she starts to think that he must be a lot closer to her age than she originally thought.

"You're a difficult lady to track down, Mary Jane Watson."

She feels the fine hairs of her forearms start to stand on edge, not necessarily in a bad way. "What's that supposed to mean?" she asks, cocking her hip, trying to seem in control of the situation.

Harry is still grinning, undeterred. "Well I went back to the opera house the next day and apparently the show had closed, and not a single soul there could tell me where to find you. So I looked you up. You have a permanent address in Queens, right? I found an old story about your run in _Footloose _at Midtown Science and after I got your last name, finding you was a breeze."

MJ is floored, unsure whether she is flattered or completely unnerved by this entire notion. "You stalked me," she says, intending for it to be a question, but not quite sounding like one.

"You ran away. I had to find you. Like Cinderella."

"Cinderella left a shoe," says MJ, still feeling a little suspicious about the whole thing. "I was very careful not to leave anything in that hotel room."

The smile slides off his face slightly. "Aw, I'm sorry," he says, "I'm really not trying to freak you out or anything, I just really like you, is all. I thought we might, you know—get to know each other."

She considers him for a moment. He seems really sincere about the whole thing. And she has to admit, he is very handsome, with one of those nice, chiseled chins and steely eyes and a tough looking scar nicking one of his eyebrows to even out the boyishness. She wills herself to notice these things, because she really wants to like him. Not just because he is a nice guy, but because she did lose her virginity to him after all, and it feels like the kind of thing she can't just walk away from. Maybe this is the universe giving her a chance to feel like less of a total slut about the whole thing. Maybe this is fate.

"I have to finish a show," she says, gesturing back toward the lounge, where the pianist is mounting the stage and motioning to her.

Harry seems to take this as permission to continue courting her, the big grin splitting across his face again. MJ has the feeling that he is the kind of person very unused to hearing the word "no."

"I'll just sit back and enjoy it while I wait for you then," he says, following her back into the lounge, where the bartender nods as if he knows Harry personally and then starts wordlessly preparing something with scotch in it. Harry turns to MJ. "What do you like to drink?"

MJ doesn't really like to drink. "Cranberry vodka," she says, because she can't think of anything else on the spot.

He snaps his fingers theatrically. "Your wish is my command."

* * *

That night with Harry doesn't end the way the first one did. They have a very nice conversation at the bar and sometime around one in the morning he kisses her on the street and it starts to rain and reminds MJ of a movie, and it should feel romantic, shouldn't it? And it does. It does. He's handsome, and nice, and kissing her in the rain, and he seems like the kind of guy who could really take care of her, and as much as she hates it she feels like she needs that right now.

He puts her number in his phone and makes her promise not to disappear on him again. "Don't be a stranger, Mary Jane," he says with a cheeky wink as she shuts the door for her.

She almost corrects him and tells him to call her MJ, but Peter calls her Mary Jane and she hasn't complained about that, so it doesn't feel right to enforce it. She tells the driver where to drop her off and when she tries to offer him money he tells her that Harry already covered it. She wonders how that's possible, she didn't see any money exchanged at all, but she takes his word for it and bounds up to the apartment to talk to Gwen.

"Is your nerd home?"

"He's out … with his camera," says Gwen, staring toward the window of her room. She regards MJ and wrinkles her nose. "Looks like you got caught in the rain. Did you walk here or something?"

She shakes her head. "That guy—I told you about? The one that I …" She knows Parker isn't home but for some reason she lowers her voice. "The one I slept with?"

"Yeah, I remember. What about him?" Gwen asks.

MJ wrings out her wet hair and watches the drops plod into the sink. She is glad she opted not to wear a lot of make-up tonight or else she's sure she would look like a raccoon. "He, uh—well, apparently he has been looking for me ever since, and he caught up with me tonight."

Gwen doesn't say anything right away, clearly trying to gage whether or not MJ is happy about this. MJ lets the silence hang there for a moment because she, too, is curious what Gwen thinks about the whole thing. Gwen is the sensible one, the one who makes smart decisions, and MJ feels like she wants to wait for Gwen's reaction as a cue to see how she should handle this.

"He did?" Gwen offers instead, keeping her voice decidedly neutral.

"Yeah," says MJ. It occurs to her that there is almost no way he could figure out she was performing at that lounge tonight without considerable snooping, especially because ofhow last minute the gig was, but she dismisses that for the moment. "He's nice. He's cute. You'd like him, I think."

Gwen considers this admittedly vague description of character. "What's his name?"

"Harry. It's Harry—Harry Osborn, I think."

She isn't expecting Gwen's eyes to shoot up in recognition. "Harry Osborn?"

"Yeah," says MJ, somewhat self-consciously. "You know him?"

Gwen releases this little puff of air reminiscent of a snort, opening her tablet and typing something into a search engine. "Yeah, you could say that," she says under her breath, thrusting the screen toward MJ.

His picture is plastered on the screen. He looks a lot younger, maybe high school age in this picture, but he is posing in front of the OsCorp building, which MJ only recognizes from meeting Gwen at work for her lunch break so many times. MJ looks over at Gwen, not quite catching her meaning. "Does he work with you?" she asks.

"I mean, yeah. Sometimes he stops by." Gwen shoves the screen at her again, pointing at the caption, clearly trying to make MJ understand. "His father is Norman Osborn. _The_ Norman Osborn. As in, head of OsCorp, Norman Osborn."

MJ holds a hand to her mouth. "Oh," she says. "_Oh_. Shit. I had no _idea_."

"How did you not recognize him?" says Gwen, laughing in disbelief. "His name is plastered all over town, aren't you supposed to be the queen of gossip? They even listed him as number one on the most eligible bachelor's list in the_ Bugle_ society section."

"I mean, I knew he was well off," MJ stammers, "he was dressed really nicely, and had one of those fancy black metal AmEx cards, but I didn't—_shit_," she finishes, feeling like a colossal idiot.

Oh, God. He probably thinks she knows exactly who he is, or worse, he knows that she doesn't and thinks it's really funny. She wonders how she'll ever face him now that she does know. How is she supposed to act around him? Is she supposed to let him keep paying for her drinks or does that just make her a complete and total gold digger? What the hell is she supposed to do if he asks her to meet his _dad?_

Gwen's still laughing, so hard that strands of her bangs are starting to pop out of her headband. MJ moans, sliding into the chair next to her friend, recollecting every moment of the night where she probably totally put her foot in her mouth by saying candid and relatively stupid things that were surely not appropriate to say to the son of the richest and smartest man in New York.

"I can't believe this. He probably thinks I'm a total dunce," says MJ, wincing.

"I don't believe that," says Gwen. "I'm sure he likes you. I mean, the guy stalked you for weeks, that's got to count for something—"

"Yeah, cuz I put out on the first date!" MJ exclaims. "Oh, man. Now he thinks I'm a slut _and_ a complete loser."

"Oh, please. I'm sure he doesn't think you're a slut, and you're plenty smart. And besides, it must be a relief for him to talk to someone about something other than nanotechnology and stem cell research all day, don't you think?" says Gwen in that practical and logical manner she always says things when she is trying to talk MJ off a ledge.

MJ props her elbows up on the table and sinks her cheeks into the palms of her hands. "Yeah, maybe," she says doubtfully. She remembers the way he laughed at her jokes, his easy smile and the self-assured way he leaned against his chair. Like someone who knew their place in the world. Someone comfortable in his own shoes. However expensive they were.

"You think you'll go out with him again, then?" Gwen asks, genuinely curious.

MJ has been wondering this same question herself. She hasn't had a boyfriend in a few months, which is unusual for her, but she has kind of liked being single. It's been a nice break from the constant stream of boyfriends she has had since she was sixteen. But she has the feeling that Harry isn't the kind of guy you pass up for the frivolous fun of being single—Harry is the kind of guy you get one chance with, take it or leave it, and MJ doesn't want to spend the rest of her life wondering what would have happened if she didn't see this through.

"Yeah," she says. "I'll call him. I will."

She feels some strange mixture of relief and dread. On some note this is good. She has justified having sex with him, and he is clearly a good guy, a safe one. He likes her. He's funny and handsome and kisses well. But on another note she feels trapped by the whole thing. Like she can't say no.

"Double date?" Gwen asks, her eyes overly bright, clearly making fun of MJ for roping her into such situations in the past.

Gwen's lighthearted jab temporarily casts MJ out of her doubts. "Hah. What a thrill," she says. "The three of you talking about nano-whatsits and geeking out all night while I twiddle my thumbs over pizza? Sounds like a blast."

Gwen gives her a wry smile. Seeming to sense MJ's unease, she offers her hand, pressing it against MJ's on the table.

"Harry's really nice. I think this could be a good thing for you."

MJ knows the implications behind this—that her boyfriends in the past haven't been stellar, that she has had poor taste in men. But she can't really get angry at Gwen for bringing it up when Gwen has always been the one dealing MJ's heartache in the aftermath, helping to patiently piece her together even knowing that she would just get her heart broken all over again by the guy at the coffee shop who turned out to be on meth, or the guy at that audition who turned out to be gay, or that guy in the subway who turned out to have three other girlfriends on the side.

But hearing Gwen's endorsement for Harry sets MJ at ease. She may have been unbelievably reckless and stupid that first night they met, but besides that, maybe this time she got it right.

MJ smiles back at Gwen and says sincerely, "I hope so."

* * *

A few nights later MJ wakes up to the sound of something slamming and Gwen cussing loudly. At first she is so disoriented that she thinks she must have dreamed it. She lays very still, her heart pumping loudly in her ears, and after a few moments she doesn't hear anything more. MJ has always had strange night terrors ever since she was a little girl, so she chalks it up to that and lets her eyes slide back shut.

"_Jesus_, Peter, you _can't—_"

The sound of Gwen's voice is distinct and loud coming from the kitchen, and she hears what can only be the sound of Peter attempting to shush her. MJ sits up in bed, unabashedly eavesdropping, wondering what in the world the golden couple could be fighting about at three in the morning.

"_Fuck_."

"I said to hold still."

"I'm sorry—"

MJ doesn't mean to kick her door open but her mattress is literally so close to the door that when she shifts on the bed, it opens with a less-than-subtle creak. She freezes, unsure of what she will find in there—what could they even be doing, besides hooking up in their kitchen at this hour—but it is evident by the silence of the room that they have heard her, that they must be staring straight toward her door.

She leans forward and sticks her head in the crack of the doorway, squinting into the darkness of the kitchen.

"Sorry," says Gwen, not quite looking at her. She is standing in front of Peter, who is perched against the counter, slouching and holding a weary hand up to his head. "Go back to sleep, MJ."

"What's going on?" she asks.

"Nothing."

This time when Gwen speaks MJ can hear the tremor in her voice, a certain thickness that can only mean Gwen has been crying. She turns to look at Peter, wondering what on earth the loser has done to make her best friend cry, but he's just standing there and letting Gwen do all the talking. Slowly MJ's eyes adjust to the darkness and she sees a first aid kit strewn out on the kitchen table and bandages in Gwen's hands.

"Are you—are you okay?" she asks, really awake now, feeling the adrenaline of uncertainty course through her veins. "What happened?"

"Yes." Gwen's voice is tight and strained. MJ creaks the door open further and starts to step out of it and Gwen says sharply, "Please, just—MJ, go back to bed, we'll talk in the morning."

But MJ is already up by now, and stepping into the kitchen. The further she walks the more Gwen tenses up, and the more Peter points his face away from her, looking determinedly toward the open door to their bedroom. She has never seen either of them behave this way, so guarded, so rigid, so _secretive_.

MJ wants to know what's happening but she can't think of what questions to ask, can't gain any point of reference to understand the situation. She wants to ask if Peter hurt her, because that's the only reason MJ can think of for the inexplicable fear and anger in Gwen's eyes, but even the thought of Peter so much as raising his voice seems ridiculous to MJ. Is Peter hurt, then? Why won't he look at her?

Her eyes flit back to the bandages in Gwen's hands and she stares up at her friend, wordless, waiting for some kind of explanation.

"It's fine," says Gwen, her jaw set. "Everything's fine."

"Gwen," says MJ, wishing her voice wasn't so high-pitched. She means to sound firm but it comes out petulant.

Gwen gnaws unhappily at her bottom lip. "Peter just—he was taking pictures, and he ended up somewhere he wasn't supposed to be."

MJ looks up at Peter, for some kind of confirmation, but he still isn't looking at her. "Like where?" she asks. "Like—like with Spiderman?"

Gwen grimaces. "Yes. With Spiderman."

"Did you get in the way, or—"

Peter stumbles forward just slightly, his grip on the counter slipping. In the quick shift of his body she sees something glimmering in the dark, something thick and shiny and matted against his head. Blood.

"Jesus," MJ exclaims.

Gwen whips around to help but Peter has already recovered himself. "It's not as bad as it looks," he says through his teeth, still staring at the floor.

"You shouldn't have been there," Gwen still says lowly, "not after the other night—"

"What happened the other night?" MJ demands, because they're starting to talk to look at each other like she isn't even there, and the more this conversation goes on the more MJ starts to think that maybe she is going crazy. It all seems unreal. She wants to stomp her foot down or shake one of them because none of this makes any sense and she's starting to feel that strange detached and helpless way she did as a kid so many times, feels it so viscerally that she almost smell the stench of alcohol hanging in the air like she could back then.

Gwen is ignoring her, unwrapping ace bandages with shaking hands.

"I slipped tailing Spiderman. Bad timing," Peter offers unhelpfully. When she turns to him she sees that he is making somewhat evasive eye contact now, and once he sees the expression on her face, which she is sure is twisted in confusion and alarm, he says, "Really, it's fine. Gwen's just mad cuz she told me not to go."

"I'm mad because you hurt yourself," Gwen growls, and the dissonance of the words she is saying and the tone she is using seems to cut through the tension in the room so swiftly that Peter has to noticeably hold his breath to keep from laughing. MJ barely suppresses a lip twitch herself. Peter notices and when he looks at her he offers a slightly crooked smile, and for the first time since the commotion woke her up, she relaxes a little.

"What was Spiderman doing, anyway?" MJ asks, as Gwen busies herself with wiping the blood off of Peter's face. "And are you sure you shouldn't go to a hospital or something?"

"Nah, it'll be fine," says Peter, with a lazy, somewhat off-kilter wave of his hand.

She notices that he has pointedly evaded the first question and is about to press on further when Gwen says, "Really, MJ, go back to sleep. Don't you have an audition in the morning?"

"Right." She had forgotten completely. Still, something doesn't seem right here, and it's not just that Peter is bleeding all over the kitchen tiles. It's the way Gwen is so dismissive of her, as if she can't possibly understand the nature of what's happening, even though it seems straightforward enough. MJ has the distinct impression that there is more to this story and that neither of them plan on telling it.

But she's tired. And she has to be up at six o'clock in the morning. She decides she will pester them about it tomorrow. "Gwen's right. You should be more careful," MJ says lamely, turning toward her bedroom but not before hearing an indignant snort escape Gwen's throat.

MJ doesn't close the door all the way when she heads back to her room, and nobody seems to notice. She waits a few minutes, listening to the sound of rustling materials and Gwen murmuring things and Peter occasionally hissing as she works on his head. Then for a long time she hears nothing. Slowly, quietly, she creeps forward on the mattress, inching to the foot of the bed, where she can still peek through the sliver of her door.

The sun is just starting to rise through the window in the kitchen, barely illuminating the pair of them. Peter is leaning up against the sink, his arms completely enveloping Gwen, with her head and her hands close against his chest. Her eyes are closed, the sunlight against her face, looking as though she could be sleeping. Peter stares straight forward into the darkness of the kitchen looking like a man who hasn't slept in years.

MJ leans back, tearing her eyes away. She isn't exactly the most respectful of other people's privacy, so she can't think of why. She has seen Gwen and Peter in their intimate moments, has seen them embrace and kiss and even more than that after one unfortunate incident when MJ came home early from rehearsal, but this seems different. Maybe just to her. Like she is feeling something she normally doesn't feel when she sees them, something a little like jealousy, wanting something that she can't have.

It's not Peter, of course. MJ has no interest in him and will never understand why Gwen does. It's just that seeing Peter standing there, looking so determined in his own way to keep Gwen safe, standing there and holding her with no impatience or motive or expectations, makes MJ wonder if she will ever find anything like that herself.

Worse, MJ wonders if she did find it if she could ever keep it half as well as Gwen has. MJ has never had any trouble getting guys to fall for her. The trouble, it seems, has always been getting them to stick around.

* * *

"You should just move in with me," Harry says, one sunny afternoon when MJ meets him at Central Park. She looks up at him, a bit stricken, but she can tell by his easy smile that he is mostly kidding. "Then we wouldn't have to do all this _walking_ to see each other."

"Lazy bones," she teases, settling next to him on a bench. "Did you ever see the light of day before you met me?"

"Rarely," he says, raising his eyebrows, and it isn't far from the truth. MJ spent a lot of time Googling his name on the internet—like any ordinary girl shacking up with Manhattan's most notorious bachelor would—and it looks like in the past Harry was prominent on the nightlife scene, getting spotted at clubs and fancy galas and driving around in a sleek red sports car that MJ didn't bother to remember the name of because she thinks there is literally nothing on the planet more boring than cars.

In any case, he doesn't seem to be going out as much at night now. MJ wonders if this new behavior preceded her or if she has something to do with it. There was one incredibly awkward night when he ran into her at a club in her full-on Budweiser promo girl glory, handing out samples to strange men and exposing a some rather provocative panels of skin, and even though he laughed it off and made jokes about it she could tell it kind of bothered him. She hasn't seen him out since.

"Who's that guy you live with, anyway?" Harry asks.

MJ scrunches her nose. "Who, Peter?"

"Yeah. We bumped into each other in the hallway after I dropped you off the other night. I didn't know you lived with a boy."

The words sound casual but MJ knows he wouldn't be asking unless he felt uncomfortable by it. She tries not to laugh, because she doesn't want to offend him, but the idea of a guy as charming and well-off as Harry spending even one second resenting a scrawny, broke nerd like Peter Parker is pretty laughable.

"He's Gwen's boyfriend," says MJ lightly. "They've been dating for years. They're like soulmates or something."

"So that's why Gwen doesn't date around the office?" asks Harry, raising an eyebrow.

MJ smirks back. "Who wants to know?"

He kisses her, his eyes mischievous. "Certainly not me." He wraps her arms around her waist, in a manner that is maybe just slightly too suggestive for Central Park at noon, and says, "I've got about as much as I can handle right here."

"You think you can handle me?" she says, letting her lip curl upward. She likes the way he stares at her, at the unabashed, unembarrassed eye contact. She can tell that he wants her, she can always tell when they do, and she'd be lying if she said she didn't enjoy the effect she has on men. "You haven't known me long enough, then."

"We'll see about that," he says, and then unexpectedly tweaks her side so she doubles over laughing.

She likes what she has with Harry. Everything with him is simple and breezy, like slipping into an old favorite pair of jeans. She doesn't have to pretend to be anyone but herself, doesn't have to pretend to be worldly or interested in politics or whatever it is goes on at OsCorp. Gwen is right—he likes that she's funny, that she says whatever she wants to say, that she yells at bad drivers from the sidewalk and that the floor of her bedroom is the only thing that is more of a disorganized disaster than she is. He calls her a breath of fresh air. Well, actually, he's taken to the nickname "kid," which she finds kind of endearing. Like she's important to him, something he wants to keep around.

MJ doesn't know if she's in love with him. It's too soon, she thinks, to know about that. But she is happy right now. She wants to take a freeze frame of the way her life is now, in these first few weeks: she likes the flow of her crazy, blood-pumping auditions all day followed by lazy afternoons with Harry, likes that he comes to her barely legitimate acting gigs and then takes her to his apartment and is perfectly content to watch trashy television with her.

One day they decide to hang out at MJ's apartment. It's kind of cramped so she texts Gwen, who says she doesn't mind one bit since she knows Harry from work, but it is evident the moment they open the door and Peter's eyes snap up in confusion that he was not warned in advance.

"Oh, hey," he says, half to Harry, half to MJ. "Are you guys just dropping by, or …"

"We're going to heat up some frozen pizzas," MJ announces.

Harry is a little tense. MJ tries not to notice. "We met once in the hallway, I'm—"

"Harry Osborn," Peter finishes, with this kind of wry, almost sarcastic grin that MJ has trouble interpreting. "Yeah. I know."

"Be nice," says MJ.

Harry clears his throat, watching MJ turn on the oven and start peeling the pizza boxes open. "I saw Gwen today, down at OsCorp," he says stiffly, trying to engage Peter in conversation. Peter only nods up at him, so he adds, "She's very bright."

"Does that compliment come with more funding for our research?" asks Gwen, stepping out of her bedroom and trying to secure one of her earrings. She glances over at Peter, then over at Harry, and that's when MJ senses that there is actual tension in this room, and she cannot for the life of her explain why. Gwen seems just as much at a loss.

Harry tries to recover. "I'll put in a word with the big guy," he says, his voice a little too cheerful.

An awkward silence settles in the room. Peter is staring obliviously into his laptop screen and Harry is shifting awkwardly, still only a few feet from the doorway. Gwen has the barest of creases forming between her eyebrows, like the beginnings of a frown, looking at Peter in confusion. She opens her mouth like she's about to ask what is going on but MJ quickly interrupts.

"Pizza should be done in twenty minutes," she says loudly.

This seems to somewhat successfully diffuse the weirdness. Harry follows her to the couch and they turn on the television, and Gwen stands over Peter's shoulder to stare at Peter's laptop screen with him. The apartment stays eerily quiet, interrupted by occasional murmuring and bursts of laugh track from the television. She wills the pizza to cook faster, as if shoving cheese into her mouth will somehow make this whole thing less uncomfortable.

The night eventually ends and a few days later she asks Peter about it. Gwen is still at work and MJ has about fifteen minutes to casually bring it up, and she spends about five of them thinking of a peaceful, non-threatening way to do that but in the end all that comes out is, "What the hell is your problem with Harry, anyway?"

Peter looks up from his laptop. "Huh?"

"Don't play dumb, you were a total ass when he came over."

Peter shrugs, seeming very disinterested in the conversation. "I don't know. He seems … like—well, you know."

MJ scowls at him. "No. I don't."

He laughs a little, and it comes out condescending, like she must be deluded if she doesn't know. When she continues to scowl at him he says, "Aw, c'mon. Privileged. Like he's never even stepped foot in Queens," he adds, with this knowing, almost conspiratorial look.

MJ doesn't often remember that she and Peter used to be neighbors. She doesn't often remember any part of living in Queens, because she spent every minute of it waiting to get to college, into the city and away from the shithole of her house. And she really hates Peter for bringing it up, for acting like they share something between the two of them, coming out of Queens the way they did. Peter may have lived just above the poverty line with her but _Peter_ had an aunt and uncle who loved him, who didn't scream so loud that the neighbors called the cops, who didn't smash windows and steal his petty cash from under his bed for booze or get fired from jobs for failing drug tests. _Peter_ isn't anything like her at all.

She feels this unjustified and sudden rage snap in her bones and says, "You know, for a kid from Queens you sure can act like a snob."

He sighs. "I have photo editing to do, Mary Jane—"

"I have photo editing to do, Mary Jane," she mimics in the nerdiest, most offensively snot-nosed voice she muster.

He looks at her, aghast, and says, "Are you five?"

"Oh, forget it. It makes sense you hate him, you already hate me."

"I don't hate you, quit being so dramatic." He looks away from his laptop for a moment, really acknowledging her for the first time and says, "Look, it isn't … he just rubbed me the wrong way, when we met in the hall the other day. I just—I didn't like the way he talked about Gwen."

MJ's eyelids narrow. "What do you mean, the way he talked about Gwen?"

Peter looks uncomfortable. He has realized a moment too late that he has treaded into dangerous territory. "Just like—like he knew her really well. It kind of bothered me, is all."

MJ feels her face growing hot and what might be the beginnings of angry tears. She knows Gwen would never try to steal Harry out from under her, but the very implication that she is a threat, that Harry might decide he likes Gwen better than her, makes her eyes sting with resentment.

It isn't _fair_. Gwen already has everything. Her dream job, her dream guy, a mother who loves her and a big apartment full of siblings she can go home to if she wants. MJ has nothing, nothing but her lousy jobs and empty bank account and Harry Osborn, and she'll be damned if Peter sits here and gets all defensive about _her boyfriend_ eyeing Gwen the wrong way.

"You don't need to worry, Parker," MJ says, her fists in tight balls at her sides. "Harry is only interested in _me_."

"Aw, Mary Jane, come on, I wasn't trying to say it like that."

"Then what _were_ you trying to say?" she snaps. She's picking this fight with the wrong person, because what she really wants to hear is that she's pretty or funny or worthwhile or even just _one smidgen _better than Gwen at _anything_, and Peter is the last person on the planet to bolster her admittedly pathetic self-esteem.

"Calm down," Peter says. "Harry really likes you."

She scoffs. "How would you know?"

"Because Gwen says he never shuts up about you at OsCorp," Peter tells her. When he looks up at her and sees that she has perked up considerably, he gives her this exasperated look and says, "Sheesh."

She leaves the kitchen then, feeling a little bit less injured, glad to know that Harry talks about her on the job. Once she is in her room she starts pulling out clothes, matching up a midriff-skimming top with high-waisted shorts and looking for the left shoe of the pair with the yellow buckles, sneaking peeks of herself in the mirror and wondering what a boy like Harry really sees when he looks at her.

After a few minutes she takes a long hard look at herself. She is short, and always has been. Her red hair is only remarkable for its color, straight and predictable down to her shoulders. Its hard to look and not see someone other than the face she is used to, but the more she scrutinizes, the more she sees the flaws. Her too-wide nose and thin lips and the asymmetrical birthmark on her neck she is sure is often mistaken for a hickey. The slight bit of pudge on her upper arms, her too small chest, the way her thick ankles meet her feet like they're indistinct from her calves. If she stares long enough she can find plenty of ways to hate herself, plenty of ways to see what her father must have seen in her, what plenty of guys and now Harry will eventually see as well.

_So that's why Gwen doesn't date around the office? _

It was an innocent question. She knows he didn't mean anything by it. But as she considers herself in the mirror, awkward and unsuccessful and the polar opposite of her best friend, the words seem to dig under her skin.

Gwen is her best friend. MJ doesn't want to want what Gwen has, because MJ has her own goals, clear and separate. She wants to be an actress. She wants to be famous. She wants to settle down in a big house she paid for with her own money, she wants to never owe anybody anything, and above all that, she wants to be loved. Not necessarily adored or fawned over the way Peter always implies when he makes fun of her, but really, actually loved.

That is when a strange dread overcomes her, and everything about her relationship with Harry feels less simple than it did only an hour before. She can't lose him. She can't let him notice the flaws, can't stick around long enough for him to see what a weak-willed, desperate, _stupid _person she really is, because right now he loves her. Right now, in the early stages when she has never fought or cried or really embarrassed herself in front of him, he loves her. So she has to be careful. She has to be smart.

She has to be _better_. Because Harry might be her only chance.

* * *

Yikes these chapters are long.

So I'm starting to accidentally make this story prophetic. As some of you who have read my previous stories are aware, I'm a deluded and semi-broke songwriter who just up and moved to Music City with no job and no friends and absolutely no hope of success just a few weeks ago. As you can see from the updated chapters, I'm somehow still alive. And the good news is, my Craigslist roomies turned out to be TOTALLY NORMAL not-rapists whose company I enjoy, and I leveraged my psych degree from a top university to get a minimum wage job selling bread products, AND my new friends filled me in on the "hot spots" where I might run into Taylor Swift (I may or may not be working in one of them).

The problem is, the more I write about MJ being pathetic, the more pathetic I get. Because literally right after I wrote that chapter about her being a Budweiser girl, I got offered supplementary income to promote liquor at concerts and nightclubs. Also I currently sleep on an air mattress, and am using a very large cardboard box I found in the dumpster as a desk. I am the poster child for cliché broke musicians.

But at least I'm not as sad as the barista at a coffee shop I played in, who eagerly informed me that he had a recording studio and would totally engineer my sound for free, which would have been legit and all except he gave me "the only free hours he had this month," which were 8pm-12pm ... on Valentine's Day. Which I have to say, props, because that is the most creative way I've ever been almost-kidnapped in at least a year.


	3. Chapter 3

**Perpendicular **

"Answer me this, Parker." MJ stretches out on the couch like a cat, admiring her freshly painted purple toenails. It's one of those mild days in late winter when the sun starts streaming into the window and the weather warms up just enough to remind MJ of her will to live, and wear open-toed shoes.

"Hmm," Peter says from the chair.

She straightens up a little, propping herself up with an elbow. "How is it that you always, always, _always_ know where Spiderman is?"

He looks up at her from the very large textbook in his lap, that he appears to have been reading with actual interest, despite the fact that they graduated like _years_ ago. "Luck," he says, turning back to the book.

MJ rolls her eyes. He clearly isn't in the mood to talk, but she's bored, and a little curious. It is uncanny that dorky, formerly-four-eyed Parker is somehow the most sought after Spiderman photographer in the city, when MJ can count on one finger the number of times she has seen the guy. And she figures it doesn't super count since she had a gun aimed at her and admittedly most of her attention was on that.

"C'mon. Seriously."

He sighs, all exasperation and exaggerated patience as usual. "I get tips," he says.

"Tips? From who, crime lords?"

"No. Police radios and stuff."

"I have never _ever_ seen you listen to a police radio," says MJ pointedly, twisting the cap back on the purple nail polish. "And even if you did, explain to me how you magically get on the scene before the cops do every time."

"How do you know I get there before the cops?"

"Because," says MJ, "Spiderman's always gone by the time the cops get there, right? So if you're getting pictures of him then you must be beating them. Which is basically impossible since you don't have a car or even a bike or anything useful to your name."

"You caught me. I can teleport."

"Ugh," MJ groans. "It isn't even worth trying to have a conversation with you. Boring people like you are the _reason_ television was invented."

Peter doesn't reply. She was hoping he might say something snarky back, because even snarking with Peter is a little less boring than staring at the wall, but he doesn't. Just flips the page of the obnoxiously, pretentiously large textbook and does a very good job of pretending that MJ doesn't exist.

"I think you know who Spiderman is," she singsongs.

This gets his attention. She knew it would. She isn't expecting those big bushy eyebrows to shoot up so far on his forehead, though, or for his grip on the textbook to slip. "How do you figure?" he asks, doing a very bad job of acting nonchalant.

She gasps theatrically. "You do know him. Don't you."

"What? Mary Jane—"

"You're spider-buds. He needs good press and you need to pay rent so he shoots you a text and shoots off his webs and _blammo_, there you are, taking the pictures—"

"That's ridiculous. I don't even _have_ texting."

"So what? He swings by here on his way to work and pops his head in the window? 'Hey, stalker-friend, I just heard they called in a bomb threat in the Lincoln Tunnel, make sure you catch my good side.'"

"Yes. That's exactly how it happens. Because in his rush to go save lives Spiderman figures he always has just enough time to swing across town and alert the paparazzi," says Peter, with a dismissive wave of his hands.

There's a few seconds of silence in which Peter readdresses his book, clearly thinking the conversation has been dropped, but she notices that his eyes are staring straight down at the pages without moving and his shoulders are hunched in this tense way that they definitely weren't just thirty seconds before. Maybe she should just drop it. But she's never been good at that.

"Peter?" she asks, trying to sound unconcerned. He looks up. She doesn't usually address him by his first name. "Do you actually know Spiderman?"

It takes him a little while to reply. He seems to be considering something, and then says carefully, "In a manner of speaking. Yeah. I know him."

MJ can't help it, but her usual annoyance at Peter has suddenly been replaced by a burning curiosity. While she isn't the biggest diehard Spiderman fan, at least not like she is pretty sure Gwen is, she can't help but get sucked into the mystique behind the whole thing. There is something undeniably sexy about a man behind a mask, and the whole "bad boy" spin that comes with being on the NYPD's most wanted list certainly doesn't hurt his appeal, either.

"Have you ever, like, talked to him?"

"Of course," says Peter, uncomfortably shifting in his chair. "I mean, every now and then."

"Well? What's he like?"

Peter shrugs. "Just a guy."

"Come _on_," MJ whines.

He rustles the pages of his textbook impatiently. "What do you even care?"

MJ crosses her arms over her chest, and then uncrosses them, because she needs to get out of the habit of doing that when it only accentuates just how little to her chest there actually is. Then she remembers that it's just Peter so she re-crosses them, and says with conviction, "He saved my life once."

Peter smirks. She catches it, just the briefest, most minimal lip twitch, gone just as fast as it appears.

"I'm not making it up! There was a hold up at a convenience store—"

"I know," says Peter.

"How? _Spiderman_ told you?"

"No." Peter rolls his eyes. "My _girlfriend_ told me. She was there, too, if you recall."

"Of course I do," says MJ, feeling the heat creep into her cheeks, annoyed at the implication that she is self-absorbed enough not to remember that Gwen was there. Of _course_ she remembers Gwen was there, and she remembers it with a guilty, twisted lump in her throat every time she thinks of it, because if it hadn't been for her and her childish demand for ice cream at one in the morning, neither of them would have been in that stupid hold-up in the first place. MJ will always and forever remember that night as the night she almost got Gwen killed.

She wrenches her body off the couch, feeling the lingering embarrassment from the whole incident as if it is fresh and new again. She stalks across the room to the kitchen, straining to keep her toes separated so she doesn't stain the carpet with her nail polish.

"I bet you don't even know him at all," she says, under her breath, just to be spiteful. "You're just a glorified ambulance chaser with a fancy camera."

Peter snorts, making it clear that he isn't affected by her jab in the slightest, the same way that he never seems to be affected by _anything_ she says or does. And it's always like this. MJ feels invisible whenever Gwen isn't home. And it's not like it matters whether Peter likes her or not, but there is a certain insecurity and discomfort she can't help when _anyone_ dislikes her—she hates the idea that anyone anywhere could be so dismissive of her the way that he is, so passive and almost uncaring. Everyone else seems to like her. And for the most part, MJ behaves herself in front of other people. But something about Peter makes her want to knock him off his high horse, something about Peter makes her dissolve into this immature, insufficient, whiny version of herself she has spent years trying to fix.

When she looks back at him he is staring out the window, out toward the street, his mind clearly elsewhere. Already he is thinking of something else. Already he has catalogued and moved on from their interaction, and already he is acting as if she isn't even here.

"I'd be nervous if I were you."

She pauses, waiting for him to ask why. He doesn't.

"I mean, if my girlfriend had such a big crush on a superhero, I would be a little suspicious. Her skirt practically falls off anytime someone mentions his name."

"Spiderman's not a superhero," says Peter. "If you ask me, he's just a normal guy with genetically altered DNA who uses his enhanced abilities to—"

"Jesus Christ," MJ exclaims. "Seriously? I imply that your girlfriend might cheat on you and _Spiderman's genetic make-up_ is all you take away from it?"

"Well. Gwen would never cheat on me." He blinks up at her as if this is the most obvious thing he has ever had to say.

MJ smiles self-righteously. "Not until she's face-to-face with a Grecian god in spandex, that is."

A strange exclamation between a choke and a splutter escapes Peter with enough volume to make MJ take a calculated step away from him and contemplate whether or not to ask him if he's alright. He recovers after a few seconds and says, "Grecian god, huh."

MJ scowls. "What? He's got a killer body. Even as a guy you can't help but notice that."

Peter raises his eyebrows, looking inexplicably smug. "Hey, you said it, not me."

She is not unused to this tone of voice. The one he uses often, all wry and ironic, as if he is in on some private joke that she will never understand. She checks the clock. Gwen won't be home for at least another hour.

Her room may be only slightly larger than a molehill, but there's a lot more room for her in there than there ever is in a room with Peter. "Weird-o," she mutters, slamming the door behind her and doubting he knows a single real thing about Spiderman at all.

* * *

Norman Osborn is confident, animated, and engaging. He welcomes MJ into his gigantic penthouse with a warm smile and shakes her hand and makes direct eye contact with her in that way that self-assured way that well-off people do, the way that Harry does. He gives her a little tour of the place, asks her about her auditions and her aspirations and does a very good job of seeming interested, and by the time MJ and Harry sit down for dinner with him she can't think of one fathomable reason to explain her sudden unease.

"It isn't often Harry brings a girl to meet me, you know," says Norman, neatly cutting the steak on his plate.

MJ smiles politely through an ambitious bite of some strange and unpleasantly spicy vegetable dish. She swallows. The apartment is so quiet and so vast that the sound of it seems to echo off the walls.

Harry touches her hand on the table in that possessive and proud way of his. She would be lying if she said she didn't like it.

"I'm glad to have made the cut," she says, trying to wash down the spiciness with a sip of wine.

Norman is much more forward about staring at her than anyone she has ever met. She wonders if this is why she feels ill at ease, but when she thinks about it, there is nothing intrusive or threatening about his stare. He seems unabashedly curious about everything around him, not at all apologetic or shy, which she supposes could only be the case for someone described as brilliant and ruthless in the press.

He leans forward a bit in his chair. "You're a very pretty girl, Mary Jane. But I'm sure that you get that a lot," he says, with a conspiratorial wink. It isn't hard to tell where Harry inherited his charm.

They've only known each other for all of a half an hour, so MJ takes this at face value, but she can't help but feel flattered.

"Dad," Harry mutters, embarrassed.

"What?" says Norman, his voice loud and booming in the empty space. "It's only the truth. You know a man is only half as attractive as the beautiful woman on his arm, son."

MJ keeps chewing carefully, trying not to react, unsure of how she should. Harry is tense at her side, his steak knife clanging against his plate a little too loudly. She doesn't say anything because she thinks that Harry might, but he doesn't, his face unreadable.

"That's very nice of you to say," she says, trying to sound diplomatic about the whole thing, but instead sounding awkward and unsure.

There's a pause and then Norman laughs inexplicably, booming and loud and unself-conscious. MJ wonders what the joke is. She casts a sideways glance at Harry but he's fixated on his plate.

Norman clears his throat and continues to eat his dinner, seemingly unaware of the tension in the room. Harry has never talked much about his mother, who died in a car accident before he can even remember, but MJ is suddenly curious what kind of woman she had been, to have married a man like this. She can't imagine an ordinary woman, but someone on one of two extreme ends: either a strong-willed, equally intelligent and present woman, or an extremely pretty, shallow idiot.

MJ is starting to get the impression that Norman has already categorized her as one of the two, and not the favorable one.

The rest of the meal is long and uncomfortable. MJ tries not to talk too much because she's afraid it will only confirm that she is nowhere near on their level of intelligence or breeding, and Harry mostly looks sullen, as if being here in this penthouse where he was raised with his blowhard father has reverted him into the rich, preppy brat that she assumed he was before she met him.

"I had a great time," she says as they're walking outside. The night is cool and breezy and an enormous relief after sitting with her back ramrod straight at the dining room table for two hours.

Harry makes an unfavorable snort. "Don't lie."

"Well, it was nice finally meeting your dad," she says lightly.

He stops walking in the middle of the sidewalk. It's late enough that the streets are relatively empty of people, but still MJ flinches as she stops with him, as if someone might barrel into them at any moment. She is unused to being alone in the city, but this is a nice neighborhood, the kind far from the theaters and clubs she usually frequents to make ends meet. The kind far from a place like Queens.

"He shouldn't have talked to you like that," says Harry. She is used to his easiness, to his relative calm and confidence, but right now he looked hardened. Upset. "The whole night, he was—I'm sorry. I shouldn't have even brought you here."

"What's that supposed to mean?" says MJ. She feels suddenly out of place and unsure. It's one thing to have Norman Osborn poke fun at her, to think she is less than cultured and smart, but it's another if Harry agrees with him.

Harry just shakes his head. "Forget it. I need a drink," he says, cocking his head toward a bar across the street.

MJ follows him uneasily. She doesn't want to go to a bar. She wishes she had just spent the night at home with Gwen, and even with stupid Peter, because right about now they're probably watching Jeopardy reruns on the sagging old couch without her.

"Is it something I said?" she asks on their way in. The seams of her dress feel like they are grating against her skin. He isn't really paying attention to her, so she takes a few quick steps forward to catch up and says, "I mean, he didn't seem to _hate_ me—"

"Of course he hates you, that man hates everything I do," Harry says caustically. "Nothing I ever do is good enough for him."

MJ stands there, stunned. He opens the door to the bar and he is halfway inside before he even realizes that she is still on the curb, open-mouthed, feeling a hurt and a shock that seems to radiate in her toes and fingertips.

"Come on," he says, the bite still in his voice.

It takes her a moment to compose herself. Her is being a jerk to her right now, and she thinks about how in the past it would be so easy to justify making a scene about this. She used to revel in that kind of attention. She knows that right now she could start yelling, she could make him feel bad enough that he would apologize and bend over backwards to please her. Hasn't she done some variation of that a dozen times with other boys?

"No, thanks," she says quietly. "I'm tired. I think I'll just take a cab home."

Harry's jaw tightens. "Don't be like this, MJ."

Unbelievable. She doesn't want to make a scene, but he's making it into one anyway. The door to the bar is still open and now the patrons inside are looking at them curiously.

"I'm really just tired," she says again, not taking the bait.

She expects him to at least attempt to calm down for her sake, to join her out on the sidewalk and at least see her into a cab. "Great," he says instead. "Now you're mad at me, too."

"Your father wasn't mad at you," MJ says, without really thinking. "What made you think he was mad at you?"

Harry just shakes his head. "You wouldn't understand."

The door of the bar crashes to a close, and Harry leaves her out on the curb without looking back. MJ bites the inside of her cheek, watching through the window as he navigates through the crowd, slouches onto a stool, and raises a few fingers up for the bartender's attention. She sees his gaze about to flit toward her on the street and looks away before their eyes can meet.

He is like a child throwing a tantrum, she suddenly thinks to herself. And she knows that he probably thinks that any moment now she is going to go in there and try to soothe him, to tell him how great he is and how stupid his father is and how she will always be there for him no matter what his father thinks about them.

But MJ pictures her own father and feels her stomach clench at the fear and the anger and the helplessness that came with living alone with him for twelve years. Somewhere in Queens he is probably drunk beyond consciousness and comprehension; somewhere in Queens he is breaking a window, or screaming at the television, or stepping on the cracked glass of a broken beer bottle and howling up a storm. Somewhere in Queens, where she grew up in a house where nobody loved her, in a house where she locked the door every night and slept with earplugs and snuck past him passed out on the couch before she hopped on the subway to get to school.

Harry's right. She doesn't understand. She doesn't understand how he can resent someone who never laid a finger on him, who never screamed at him, whose only fault was thinking he was "not good enough."

Norman might not be winning any father of the year awards, but MJ would have settled for "not good enough" any day of her life if she could trade places with Harry.

* * *

Gwen seems to have a sixth sense for when MJ's heart is getting ripped out of her chest, because even though it's ten o'clock at night and Gwen has work in the morning, she's sitting on the couch when MJ comes back.

"What happened?" Gwen asks immediately, before MJ is even finished walking through the door.

MJ sighs. She doesn't feel much like crying, but she is pretty sure she is through with Harry after tonight. She glances into the bedroom to make sure Peter isn't home, because for some reason she doesn't want him to know how spectacularly and quickly she ruined yet another promising relationship. She tells herself it's because she doesn't want him to have any more ammunition against her than he already does.

"I met Norman Obsorn," MJ starts. Her voice really isn't even quavering, and it isn't a struggle to pretend to be okay with this. "And it turns out Harry really resents him or something."

"Ah," says Gwen carefully. There is some indication in the way that she stares down at the cup of tea in her hands that she already knew this.

"Anyway, after we had dinner, Harry was pissed off and we—well, I guess we got into a fight." MJ shrugs off her jacket and hangs it up on the hook by the door. "I don't know. It was weird. He got mad really fast, mad at _me_, and I didn't do anything."

Gwen raises her eyebrows just slightly.

"Seriously, I didn't," says MJ, resisting the urge to pout. "That's what was so weird about it. He was like—an overgrown kid." She sets her purse down on the table and slumps next to Gwen on the couch. "And then he wanted to go to a bar and I could just tell from looking at him he was going to get drunk and stupid, so I left."

For a few moments Gwen doesn't say anything, mulling over what MJ has said.

"You think I should have stayed," says MJ, now starting to wonder if she has made the right choice.

"No," says Gwen. "I think you did the right thing. If he's pissed at his dad he has no business taking it out on you."

MJ curls her knees up to her chest. It's a relief to be here. This apartment feels more like home than any other place, and Gwen feels more like her family than anyone else ever has.

"He didn't try to follow you or talk to you or anything?" asks Gwen.

MJ shakes her head. Gwen looks surprised, like she can't fathom this kind of rudeness, but then again, she's been dating a guy who follows her around and worships like a lapdog for years now.

"I'm sorry, MJ. That sucks."

MJ just shrugs. Usually she would stay up and talk to Gwen for awhile about it, ranting and making declarations about how she is turning over a new leaf, setting higher standards for herself, or some other kind of out of proportion pep-talk that keeps them up late into the night, but for the first time it doesn't really seem worth it. Maybe, in the long run, Harry was just a blip. Maybe every guy who lets her down doesn't have to be a monumental heartbreak; maybe sometimes it just doesn't work out.

"You should get to bed," she says to Gwen. "You've got work in the morning."

"You don't want to stay up?" Gwen asks. "I'm sure there's something good on TiVo. We could order pizza or something. I don't think Peter is gonna be back until late."

"Nah," says MJ, waving her off. "Maybe this weekend. I'm fine. Really."

She heads to her room after that, falling asleep almost as soon as her head hits the pillow, into a dreamless kind of sleep that makes waking up disorienting. She hears three sharp knocks on her bedroom door and thinks that no time has passed at all. There isn't a window in the room to indicate the time of day, so she shoots out of bed and checks her phone and sees that it's almost nine in the morning.

"What," she says crossly, because it can only be Peter.

The door starts to open.

"Hey," she yelps, grabbing the blankets and pulling them up to her chest before he gets a glimpse at the bra she fell asleep in.

"Oh—Jesus, Mary Jane," Peter exclaims, shutting the door again so quickly that the slam jolts the posters hanging on the walls.

"You can't just—you just—_you're_ the one who just opened the door," she stammers. "What the hell do you want?"

He sounds equally annoyed. "These came for you."

"What is 'these'? I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Flowers, a whole bunch of them. I just had to lug them inside. You're welcome."

MJ presses her forehead to her knees, the events of the previous night rushing back. She already feels a mixture of relief and exasperation mingled with an inexplicable dread. So Harry is sorry. Of course he is sorry, and he should be. But some part of MJ was hoping to just call it a clean break last night and never have to see him again.

"What, did you get into a fight with your boyfriend last night or something?" Peter snorts through the door.

"Screw off, Parker," MJ seethes.

There's a distinct pause. "Yikes. Sorry. I was only joking."

"Just leave them."

Once she tugs on an oversized shirt and leggings she opens the door and sees an obnoxiously expensive bouquet of red roses in a fancy, costly basket that looks absurd against the backdrop of their dirt cheap apartment. They're beautiful, of course. Probably the best roses money can buy in this city. But the sight of them only irritates her more. What does he think, that she can be bought off by flowers? If this big extravagant gesture is his move after their first fight, then does he really think so little of her, that she will just get over it if he _buys_ her things?

She looks for a note, and finds it wedged in the basket.

_Mary Jane—_

_I was a complete ass last night. Please forgive me. Brunch at that little spot you love uptown? Call me. _

_Harry_

She fingers the note in her hands, the sturdy cardstock and the fancy handwriting she is pretty sure somebody else transcribed for him. It all seems a little unreal. The flowers, the note, the excessiveness and the nonchalance of it. It's insulting, and she knows he didn't mean it to be, but in a way she is angrier about this then she is about anything that happened last night. Last night his father was making her feel unimportant and small; now, with these stupid apology flowers, Harry was confirming it.

Peter is still sitting in the kitchen with what is probably his third bowl of cereal. She feels him staring and looks up, already prepared to scowl, but he looks away too quickly for her to get her point across.

"The flowers are nice, at least," says Peter unhelpfully.

MJ jams the note back into the card. "They'll be dead within the week. If a guy's going to apologize with a fancy gift basket, shouldn't it be full of food or something more useful than dead plants?" she says, trying to make light of the situation.

"Cut him some slack. He's trying to apologize for whatever it is," says Peter, in a tone that suggests that he doesn't think "whatever it is" is very important at all.

MJ rolls her eyes. "With flowers. Seriously?" she asks. _Call me,_ the letter said. Not a question, but a command. Why should she call him? Shouldn't he be the one calling, and apologizing in _person_, instead of letting some floral delivery guy do it for him?

And is that really the point here? Or does she even want him to bother apologizing at all?

She almost doesn't want to see him again. And it took a night of sleep to realize that it's not because he was being a brat, or because he is bad at apologizing, but because that dismissive way he left her out on the street and shut her out of his world was so like her father, and happened so fast, that there is no way she could convince herself it won't happen again.

"What'd he do? Make fun of your hair?"

"No."

"Well?"

MJ finds herself struggling to explain, opening her mouth and then closing it like a fish. She can tell that Peter thinks it was over something frivolous and stupid. It's no secret that he thinks she's a drama queen, and maybe she is, but she's been _trying_, for Christ's sake, and shouldn't she get some credit for that?

"It wasn't even that big of a deal," she says. "The flowers are—I don't know why he sent these."

A corner of Peter's lip curls. For once it seems conspiratorial rather than smug. "Because he can," he says, and even though he is clearly mocking Harry for the gesture, it makes MJ feel a little bit better about the whole thing. Because she's right. The flowers are a terrible way to apologize, and even stupid, superior, know-it-all Peter agrees with her on that.

MJ suddenly finds herself smirking right back. "You know what we should do?"

"What," Peter asks, sounding a little uneasy.

She picks up the basket and plops it down on the table in front of him. "Let's have someone deliver them to Gwen at work."

Peter looks puzzled. "Why?"

"Because—well, when's the next time any of us will be able to afford to send fancy flowers? And it's her birthday next week."

"I guess," says Peter, warming slightly to the idea.

"Also," says MJ, in the interest of being honest, "because Harry will probably be at OsCorp today, and I just would really love to imagine the look on his face when he sees Gwen walking around with those flowers instead."

She is expecting his usual brand of exasperation or annoyance, because it takes him a second to react. Then suddenly he laughs. She is taken aback by it, almost the same way she was by Norman Osborn's, but Peter has one of those gentler kind of laughs, the kind that dies a little bit in his throat and makes you feel gratified for earning it.

He looks her square in the eye and says, "Yeah. Let's do it."

* * *

Harry doesn't mention the flowers again when she meets up with him that night, so she can only assume he got the message on that loud and clear. He tries to take her to some restaurant that she's never heard of with one of those deceivingly simple names that mask its fanciness, but she insists on hamburgers in a chain joint, and even though she thinks he'd probably say no to that any other day of the week, he obliges. She gets there early and pays for her own food. For some reason that feels important to her now.

They make bad small talk about his day at OsCorp and the two auditions she had today, and then when she reaches for her soda Harry grabs her hand mid-gesture and says sincerely, "I really am sorry about last night."

She freezes. She should grasp his hand back in some reassuring gesture, and she does, but it's a beat too late. "It's okay," she says, even though it isn't.

"He just gets on my nerves. I shouldn't have reacted like that," he continues. "It's just—you're really important to me. More than the other girls I've brought home, more than any of the girls I've dated. And—well, I just wanted him to see that."

She feels her skin tingeing pink. "That's—um," is all she can manage, because she wasn't expecting this conversation to take such a serious turn so quickly.

"I know we've only been dating a few months," he jumps in, sparing her the awkwardness of thinking up something to say. "But I just—it's different with you. You know?"

It's the first time she has ever seen Harry look so vulnerable. For a moment he is all boyishness, all eager and unsure and waiting for her. It's surprising how quickly she lets the anger go, seeing him look almost fragile. There is none of the usual bravado, none of the privilege or assumption that she usually senses from him. His grip loosens somewhat on her hand, like he is giving her a chance to pull away.

This would be the chance to pull away, she thinks. If there ever were a time to make a clean break with Harry, this is it.

She needs time. She needs to think about this. Every other boy, and every other circumstance, it has been so easy to decide—she has never been picky about boys, or relationships, because nothing ever seemed all that permanent. But it seems like ever since that night she gave herself up to him in that hotel room, Harry has been determined to stay.

Without meaning to make a decision, she makes one. "Yeah," she tells him.

He straightens up in his chair, his eyes more intense than ever. "I love you," he says.

The lights are dreary and clammy on their skin, but his face splits into a smile, full of relief and trepidation. He squeezes her hand and exhales like he has been bursting to say it for weeks. She stares at him for a moment, considering him, trying to picture a life with him, what tomorrow would be like, what next year would be like, if they would ever have children together.

She can't picture it. Suddenly the world is too overwhelming for her to think. Somebody is making an announcement that order 46 is ready, a little kid is whining at her mother for a cookie, the buzz of the air conditioning is whirring in her ears.

She says the only thing she can.

"I love you, too."

* * *

That night, MJ dreams.

It's the kind of dream that sneaks up on you, the kind of dream that seems ordinary and innocuous enough that it doesn't occur to her that it's a dream. She is walking in the park with Harry. The sun is blazing over head, and it's the perfect kind of day, and she feels warm and happy and secure, holding his hand.

The next moment he is leaning in to kiss her, and then, suddenly, inexplicably, she can't breathe. The ground seems to fall out from under them and Central Park dissolves into blackness. The situation is altogether terrifying, but in this dream she doesn't feel any fear. Harry's arms wrap around her waist, tight and secure, and she holds onto him with all her strength, and has this notion that no matter what happens next, they'll be okay as long as they stay close to each other.

And then just as soon as the falling sensation begins, it stops. She sucks in a breath, and opens her eyes, in an unremarkable place that she doesn't recognize or care about. She pulls away, about to touch Harry's face, only something is wrong.

Peter Parker is staring at her, his brown eyes steady and sure on hers.

She wakes up gasping, remembering every moment of the dream in vivid detail. It isn't enough to just lie back down and sleep it off, because she is afraid she will slip right back into it. She clambers out of bed, flicks on the lights and rubs a little too hard to get the sleep out of her eyes, feeling dumb, and a little bit traitorous.

She checks her phone. It's half past three in the morning. She's awake now, for better or for worse, so she opens the door to her room, hoping that a burst of cool air conditioning from the kitchen will help her shake off the dream, of the strange intensity of Peter's arm around her waist, of the way her heart started beating double-time when she looked up and realized it was him instead of Harry.

No. _No_. _Ew._ She's not even going to let herself go there. Of course her heart started beating, because it was _shocking_, and made no sense—not because she has _any_ kind of feelings for—

Peter is standing in the kitchen, and glances up at her when she emerges from her room. She suppresses a little gasp of surprise, feeling suddenly self-conscious in her t-shirt and shorts.

"Oh. Sorry if I woke you up."

She is stricken by the difference in his voice, so low and soft. She knows it's because he is trying not to wake Gwen up, but she has to blink, _hard_, to not associate it with the dream.

"N-no," she says. "I was just … what are you doing up?"

He offers her a half-smile. "Spiderman," he says, tapping the camera strapped around his neck.

"Oh. Right."

She stands there, shifting her weight between her feet, wondering if she should just go back into her room. But there's something about the stillness of this moment, something about the early morning air and the hum of the sleeping city below them, that stops her. So she walks over to the window and sits on the little perch there, appreciating the eerie quality of the quiet and peace settling between them.

"How did things go with Harry?"

MJ stares at her bare feet as they graze the floor. "Alright," she says. "Get any good pictures?"

Out of the corner of her eye she sees Peter shake his head. "It was … one of those crazy nights, I guess."

"Spiderman always saves the day, though, right?"

Peter runs a weary hand through his hair. "He does the best he can."

She considers him for a moment, the purple under his eyes, the slackness in his jaw. "You should get some sleep."

He nods with an agreeable, "Hmm."

She turns her attention back out to the window. A few lone cars drive past beneath them. The neon light for the deli flashes in its usual pattern, and someone across the street is watching television in their living room. She waits for Peter to leave, but he doesn't.

"Gwen told me what happened with you and Harry last night," he says.

She looks over at him but keeps her expression neutral. It isn't really a surprise that he knows; she takes for granted that Gwen just tells Peter everything. It's just that usually Peter never brings it up, so she wonders why he is putting in his two cents now.

His face is thoughtful. "Just … be careful."

She opens her mouth to say something, feeling indignant and angry like it's a reflex. But then she doesn't. Because there is no trace of irony or sarcasm in his voice, no indication that he is belittling her at all. He says it like he means it. He says it like they're friends.

Eventually he nods, and starts to leave, and her opportunity to say something back is gone. Once the bedroom door is shut behind him, she stays perched by the window for a long time.

She thinks about the dream. About the fraction of a second where she was staring up at Peter, the fraction of a second when she was in his arms and feeling a stir in her gut that she can't quite explain. No matter how hard she tries to think of something else, she can't cast it out of her mind, until she finally just gives up and tries to fall back asleep again, the words _be careful_ ringing unhelpfully in her ears.

* * *

So I'm delirious. I'm still working the 6am shift at a bakery. Which is actually kind of fun, because on Saturdays I'm up in that window of opportunity where I get to see the sorority girls doing their walks of shame as I pull into the parking lot for work in the morning. Betcha wish you spent your Friday night writing Spiderman fanfiction NOW, huh, bitchezz?


	4. Chapter 4

**Perpendicular **

A few months pass and a gradual and unexpected thing happens: Peter and Harry become friends. And not just casual let's-get-a-cup-of-coffee-sometime kind of friends, but legitimate, nerdy, text-to-find-a-place-to-skateboard friends. Gwen thinks it's all very touching that Peter finally has a guy friend; it makes MJ want to projectile vomit all over both of them.

"What?" MJ says crossly when Gwen implies that she's overreacting about the whole thing. She motions to the front door, where Peter and Harry were supposed to return over an hour ago. "No offense, but I'd like some quality time with my boyfriend without _your_ boyfriend sending him YouTube links to hipster bands I've never heard of."

"Well—now you know how Peter feels when we go off and do girly things without him," says Gwen.

MJ doesn't have much to say to that, because it's true, that back in their hey-day in college MJ stole Gwen for nights out plenty of times. It seems, though, as they get older, that those nights are fewer and farther between. They're twenty-four now, and Gwen has full-time job that keeps her busy during the day, and MJ has all sorts of useless crap that can barely be called employment at night. They occasionally get to eat breakfast together on Sunday mornings, but that's about it.

In the end MJ can't really be all that bitter about Peter and Harry being friends because it does mean she gets to see a lot more of Gwen. The four of them end up seeing movies or going out to dinner together every so often and within a few months they unintentionally form a happy little pack. It feels like she dreamed up the first awkward time Harry walked in to the apartment, because he is there often enough that he practically lives there with the three of them. It's bizarre, since Harry's apartment is a lot bigger and more central to everything downtown, but they never end up spending much time there.

They fall into a familiar rhythm. The boys go skateboarding or rock climbing while MJ and Gwen get coffee or go for a run, then they all meet at the apartment to hang out together for awhile, and then the respective couples pair off and sheepishly shut the doors to their bedrooms.

It goes on like this for almost a year. It's a time that MJ takes for granted, one that she will only come to appreciate long after it is gone. It's a year where nothing remarkable happens, and maybe that's the beauty of it: MJ is still struggling to get her acting career off the ground, Gwen is still working full-time, Peter is running around with his camera, and Harry is starting to take up some of his father's charity work. They're all busy but they're all doing something that makes them happy, and they're all comfortable and secure in their relationships.

MJ still wishes for a lot of things. She wishes for her big break, for a good audition, for the three of them to be able to afford a better apartment or at least an apartment where she doesn't sleep in a closet. But these are trivial concerns. She loves Harry, and because she loves Harry there is a part of her that is eager to soak up every moment of here and now, when she is still living with Peter and Gwen, because as she nears her twenty-fifth birthday and their relationship becomes long-term and serious, she knows that change is on the horizon.

This becomes evident when Harry starts hinting at looking at apartments together, leaving advertisements open on his laptop and remarking that he might be able to tolerate her girly touches in his living room. It becomes even _more_ evident when he invites her to his cousin's wedding, and tells her that he thinks she would make a beautiful bride, in a proud kind of way as if he is already imagining being the one she walks down the aisle toward.

But neither of these things are the real shift in the tides. Instead it happens on the night of a gala—a gala that Harry invites MJ to attend with him as his date. Ordinarily she says no, because she doesn't like the idea of having him pay for a dress for her, but it's for a good cause and they've been dating long enough that MJ knows he isn't the type to ever keep score on that kind of favor.

She tries on the dress at a fancy shop uptown a few days before the event.

"You're gorgeous," says Harry, in complete sincerity.

MJ can't argue with him. The dress is tailored perfectly to her petite frame, a shimmering navy blue floor-length gown with a deep V in the back exposing her pale skin. It hugs her in all the right places and the fabric is mesmerizing, catching the light whenever she moves.

He touches her lightly on her bare shoulders and kisses her. "You're going to piss off every one of those high society women, strolling around in this," he says.

She grins back at him. She can't say she doesn't enjoy the idea of that, although she is sure that most of their jealousy will be directed at her handsome date more than her dress.

"Aren't you going to be in San Francisco that day?" she asks, as the woman styling the dress holds up another necklace to her face.

"I'm flying back in the afternoon. I'll be there in plenty of time, but I'll send a car to get you just in case."

The flight gets massively delayed, but Harry isn't able to text her from the plane to tell her. So at a quarter to nine MJ takes the elevator in their apartment down to a town car in the most expensive dress and shoes she has ever worn, with her red hair twisted and clipped into a fancy updo that she and Gwen spent the better part of an hour perfecting.

When she arrives, Harry isn't waiting discreetly on the side of the press mayhem like he told her he would be. She knows this before she even gets out of the car, and there is a gut-twisting, terrifying moment where she sits there, contemplating calling the whole thing off and telling the driver to take her back home. The women here are exotic and plucked and out of her league, and none of them are alone, and MJ has only ever been to a place half this fancy as the entertainment.

But she has dreamed of being important for so long, and she doesn't need Harry to do it.

She opens the car door with her head held high, her heart hammering in her ears and her feet a little wobbly on her high heels. She straightens her back and resists doing another sweep in search of Harry, instead setting her eyes on the entrance and willing her face to look cool and unaffected by the chaos.

There is a deceiving calm when as she turns to shut the door behind her, and when she turns back around it seems like all hell breaks loose: there are cameras flashing everywhere, strangers shoving lenses into her face and yelling questions—who she's wearing, who she's here with, and loads of bizarre things that she doesn't even have the ability to split her attention and listen to. It takes everything in her power to suppress the manic grin threatening to split across her face. She smiles coolly and keeps walking to the entrance, nodding at the doorman who lets her in without checking for her name on the list.

They ask her a lot of things, she notices, but nobody asks her who she is. As if she is already known, as if she is already _somebody_. She is sure when they look back at the footage later without any name to put to her face they will realize they were bedazzled by a nobody, but right now, in this moment on the other side of the door, she is too excited to care.

But just as soon as the exhilaration swells in her chest, she feels it deflate in terror as she looks around the unfamiliar room full of well-assured women and rich older men, all of whom seem to know each other, and know just by looking that she isn't anybody they need to know. She takes a few steps forward, unsure what to do with herself, trying to catch anybody's eye or a friendly face, but all she gets is a few unnecessarily long and catty once-overs from society girls whose nose jobs must have cost more than her college education.

_Just keep walking_. What do people even do at a gala? She has a sudden childish urge to pull out her phone and run an internet search on how to behave here, and feels stupid for not checking before she left, and stupider for not having any idea in the first place. What was she planning to do, hang around Harry like a lost puppy dog all night?

Someone offers her champagne and she takes one off the tray gratefully, swigging it without thinking. Yes. That's exactly what she'd planned to do, was follow charming, well-connected Harry around like some bimbo, and smile and shake hands with his high society buddies, and not have to justify her presence here in any way because being on the arm of a freaking _Osborn _is more than enough justification for anyone in this city.

She wants to text him. She knows he wouldn't just ditch her here without a good reason, so she is afraid he might be in some kind of trouble. But wouldn't someone have already gotten in touch with her if that were the case? She sneaks a peek at her dinosaur-old phone but there are no new messages, so she sneaks it back into her purse before anybody sees the clunker and gives them more of a reason to believe she is a fraud.

"Miss? Can I show you to your table?"

MJ turns to face a uniformed staff member. "Um—I'm not sure where I'm sitting," she says, sounding more flustered than she meant to.

The man smiles at her kindly. Is it that obvious that she doesn't belong here?

"Your name, miss?"

"MJ—uh, Mary Jane Watson," she says, hoping that Harry put her actual name on the reservation.

He checks an electronic pad and then says, "Right this way, Miss Watson."

He leads her to a table in the very front of the room, right next to the stage. She can feel a hundred eyes burning holes into the back of her neck as she sits down next to a very obviously empty seat at a table full of important people she has never met.

She thanks the man and very carefully smoothes the creases on her dress before sitting down. There's already food on the table but she is too nervous to eat it. In fact, she hasn't really eaten much at all today, on account of the nerves and excitement of getting ready and running all around the city to find the perfect hair clips with Gwen. She takes another sip of champagne, hoping it will do something to calm her, and turns her attention to the empty stage, trying to look confident and bored by the whole occasion.

It turns out she is sharing a table with a man about to announce his candidacy for mayor, a city planner, and several higher-ups in OsCorp. At first she smiles and tries to make stilted small talk with them, not even sure what their jobs were, but they warm up to her quickly when they realize she has no idea what she's doing here and after that they are friendly, and even seem to get a kick out of her. By the end of the speeches and performances she has even made a few tentative friends with them, and they have made promises to keep an eye out for her in the theater world, and maybe even mention her to a few of their friends booking entertainment for their events. She knows they are only offering mostly out of pity, but on the list of the worst, most embarrassing things that could happen tonight, pity offers are pretty low.

That is, until she stands up to applaud the end of the last speech, and the room swims a little bit.

Oh, god. She is drunk. She is undeniably and suddenly quite past tipsy and all the way to _drunk_.

She grabs the back of her chair so bide herself some time to figure out how to handle this. Does she really have to stay much longer, or is it over now? Nobody's heading toward the door, all the women are up and mingling and looking extra proficient at walking around in their high heels.

She takes a few hesitant steps forward. Success. Alright. One foot at a time. She isn't quite sure where she's headed so she looks up, thinking maybe she should find some food, but the waiters are clearing out all the appetizers. Of course. Perfect. It's fine. She'll just … maybe the bathroom. How is she even supposed to pee in this dress? Oh, jeez.

She's halfway there, she'll figure it out. It feels like her eyes are bulging with the effort to keep everything in the room balanced. Did the carpet have those ugly swirly patterns on it before? Who the hell gave the sign off on that? No. No, pay attention to the forward—to going forward—to _walking_.

"Mary Jane?"

She blinks. Her eyelids are ridiculously heavy. She turns, maybe a little too quickly, and stumbles a little bit.

Peter Parker is standing in that one bedraggled suit that he owns, with a press pass around his neck and a camera in his hands.

"What are _you_ doing here?" she manages, even though it's obvious enough.

He snorts a little bit, all traces of professionalism disappearing. She sees his lips curl into a smirk and already feels a pit of dread before he opens his mouth. "Oh my god," he says. "You're drunk."

"What?" She shakes her head emphatically. God, she hates him right now. "No, no I'm—what are you talking about?"

He laughs, louder this time, and MJ burns a hole into the floor, determined not to look at him. "I've seen you drunk before," he says. "Your whole face is bright red."

"No it's _not_," she insists, but now that he mentions it her face totally feels like it's on fire. Peter's still trying not to laugh so she takes a step forward, ending up a little closer to him than she had intended and says, "It's not my fault, I'm just pale and it's _hot_ in here is all."

"Oh, man," he says good-naturedly, putting a hand on her shoulder to steady her. "Come on. We'll go find Harry."

"What? No," she says, "Harry's not here."

Peter frowns. "Well, when is he coming back?"

"He's not."

Her throat feels really dry, and she tries to swallow and instead a loud, involuntary hiccup escapes her. She looks up at Peter in alarm and sees that he is almost holding his breath in an effort not to laugh at her, and he looks so ridiculous and she feels like such an idiot that she giggles outright.

"Well where is he? Are you by yourself?"

She nods. Only because she doesn't trust any of the potential noises coming out of her throat right now, and maybe it's just the alcohol but it feels like _everyone is staring_.

Peter checks his watch. "Well … I've got enough pictures. I think I can head out."

She grabs his arm. "Can I come with you?"

He looks at her a little disbelievingly. "Yeah. That's why we're leaving. You're tanked, Watson."

"Only a little," she concedes, trying to follow him and walking a little crooked.

"Oh, boy."

His hand is warm and unexpectedly calloused when he grabs hers. He leads her out, mentioning something about a taxi, and texting Harry to see where he ended up. His voice seems kind of far away, and she finds her thoughts wandering to places that they maybe shouldn't. She likes the way his hand feels in hers. It's kind of a relief, the rhythm that he walks, patient and easy as she stumbles along. She always feels like she's trying to catch up to Harry, as if he's pulling her along like a child.

She exhales in relief when they hit the curb and there are no photographers. They must be leaving pretty early, but without Harry there isn't much point to her staying anyway.

"You're not going to get in trouble? With your boss," she clarifies, pointing toward the camera.

"Nah. He only wants Spiderman pictures anyway."

Peter flags down a taxi. MJ doesn't even know how he spots one—all the headlights kind of seem like they're blurring together. The city seems louder than usual, pulsing under her feet. Peter lets go of her hand and she stands there on the sidewalk feeling a strange kind of loneliness creeping up the hems of her dress.

He opens the door for her and they climb inside, and she has at least enough presence of mind to make sure the bottom of the dress doesn't tear.

Peter gives the driver an address and she slumps into the seat as the car starts to move.

"I don't know what I was thinking," she groans.

"Those things are pretty boring."

"No," she says, batting her hand in a vague direction, trying to indicate how, as usual, he has grossly misunderstood her meaning. "I just … I don't belong there, I shouldn't have gone in without Harry."

"Why?"

She glances at him lazily. From this slumped angle she can see the curve of his jaw, and the beginnings of stubble on his chin. She had no idea Parker even had it in him to grow facial hair. She resists the nonsensical urge to brus\h it with her fingers.

"Because," she says. "I'm not … I'm just …" _I'm not pretty like them_, she wants to say. _I'm not glamorous or elegant. I'm just stupid ordinary me_.

But she knows that if she says anything like that Peter will roll his eyes and call her vain for fishing for compliments. She shuts her eyes and listens to the sound of the traffic around them, letting the words hang there before he can use them against her.

"Well," says Peter. "You—you look really nice tonight."

She smiles just slightly.

"I mean, it's a nice dress on you."

"Thanks," she says, and for the first time that night, she feels the tension unwinding in her shoulders and the knot in her stomach unclench. She leans back and relaxes against the seat, and the noises grow dimmer and the lull of the wheels under their feet dampens her senses. She is only barely aware of her neck starting to slump and her head resting against something. She realizes it must be Peter's shoulder, but she's too tired to care, and he must not care enough to move away.

"Hey." He rustles her awake a bit later. "Hey, we're here."

Gwen's waiting for them on the curb, looking positively gleeful. "I got a text from Peter he found you wasted at your fancy party," she explains, helping Peter hoist her out of the cab.

She glares at Peter, or tries to. "Traitor."

"Come on," says Gwen, who has smartly brought down a pair of MJ's well-worn flats. "Let's get you upstairs. I told you this would happen if you missed lunch."

Gwen hands her some pop-tarts when they get into the apartment, and MJ thinks they might actually, literally, absolutely be the most delicious thing she's ever tasted. "Is this _strawberry?_" she says through a mouthful of them.

"Yup," says Gwen, unzipping the back of MJ's dress. "Here, step out of it."

They're in Gwen's room. The door is shut so Peter can't see in, or at least MJ assumes it is, because this pop-tart is so delicious that other thoughts can't really occupy her brain. Gwen hands her a nightgown and she shoves her arms into the sleeves still clutching half of her snack, and when half of it crumbles and hits the floor Gwen bursts out laughing, and MJ dissolves just as fast.

"You can't tell Harry," MJ gasps through her giggling.

"Are you kidding? You're lucky I don't have twitter."

Gwen stashes the dress up on a hanger. "It's so pretty," says MJ, admiring it. She looks at her Gwen, the girl who has been her best friend, her sister, and sometimes mother, and says proudly, "You'll have to use it when you're going to all your fancy person award dinners someday."

Gwen scoffs. "Yeah, sure."

"No, really." MJ isn't sure what possesses her to grab Gwen's hands, or even where the pop-tart has landed at this point, but she _needs_ Gwen to understand. "You're smart, Gwen. Okay, scratch that, that sounds—that's not what I'm trying to say." She takes a deep breath, and she can see Gwen trying not to laugh, and she knows she has to collect herself so Gwen knows she means it. "You're brilliant, and driven, and you're going to be one of those people they put abstract paintings of in school libraries and make kids read about in textbooks for all the important stuff you're going to do."

"MJ," says Gwen self-consciously.

"I'm serious," says MJ. She points to the dress. "You're going to wear that when it happens. Promise?"

Maybe it's just the light, or MJ's wonky, drunk perception of the world, but Gwen's eyes tear up just a little. "Okay," she says, so softly that MJ barely hears it.

An hour later MJ is on the couch, in her nightgown, with Gwen sandwiched in the middle of her and Peter. Maybe it's the just the alcohol buzzing happily in her nerve endings, but she loves everything about this moment, loves it so much that she thinks she might cry.

This is all going to be over soon. Warm, happy, safe. Contained. Soon Gwen is going to get promoted, or have some big breakthrough with her project, and she'll be traveling the world or preparing for important conferences. And Peter will follow her wherever she goes. And MJ will be left in New York—not lonely, because she has Harry. No, not lonely. But different.

She isn't ready. She sinks a bit further into the couch and sees that Gwen's other hand is intertwined with Peter's, and watches them exchange one of those secret little glances like people in love.

"You guys are going to make great parents someday," says MJ offhandedly.

There is an awkward silence.

"Uh," Peter manages.

"I mean, just—well, you managed to get a drunk girl home in one piece tonight between the two of you, and you're practically married, so. It's like, if Gwen got knocked up, it wouldn't be the _worst_ thing in the world."

"Hokay," says Gwen. "I think it's time for bed."

"You could take it for walks in Central Park, and teach it to swim, and I would dress it up in frilly little outfits—"

"Why is our potential child an 'it'?" Peter interjects.

"I'd totally babysit!"

"God help us."

"_Hey_," she says, "I'd be an _awesome _aunt."

"Bed," says Gwen, pointedly, heaving MJ up by one of her elbows. But she's smiling when she does it, and Peter looks a little sheepish, so she knows that she hasn't _really_ offended either of them. And besides, it's a fun thought. Sure, things will change, but it doesn't necessarily have to be _bad_. So maybe they'll all move away, but how _cute_ would it be if she and Harry had a kid and it married Peter and Gwen's? Aside from the fact that her grandkids would be twenty-five percent Parker, that is.

As Gwen deposits her into her room and she settles under her covers she tries to imagine it, and her chest aches suddenly, like she is longing to go back from it when it hasn't even happened yet. For a moment it is all set in stone. For a moment she knows exactly how her life will go, and exactly who she will spend it with, like a story she read with a disappointingly predictable end.

What is the matter with her? Why doesn't she want the things she should want? Why can't she ever be satisfied with what she already has?

She wakes up in the middle of the night, still a little bit drunk, desperate for a glass of water. She leaves her room unsteadily and finds Peter standing in the kitchen without any of the lights on, the same way she found him all those months ago, when he warned her to be careful about Harry. He looks solemn, and not very surprised to see her. He also looks like he's been standing there for a very long time.

"Why're you up?" she says, wiping her nose with her sleeve in a decidedly unladylike fashion.

The angles of his face are so much more intense in the dark. "You should go back to sleep," he says.

Something doesn't feel right. "What happened?" Her senses are wonky and unreliable, but she doesn't need them to know she should ask.

He shakes his head just once. But then she follows his gaze out to the street, and sees in the distance, at a straight shot about twenty blocks down, the faint sight of police cars flashing. A _lot_ of them. Enough that she knows something of a very large magnitude has happened in Manhattan tonight.

She wants to know what it is. She wants to know if Spiderman fixed it, and where it happened, and who else was involved. "Are you okay?" she asks instead.

Peter finally looks over at her. "Yeah," he says. "I'm just—"

He cuts himself off. She is dying to know what he was about to say, because she can tell it was something important, something he would probably only ever let slip in the vulnerable hours just before dawn.

"You should go back to sleep," he says again.

She doesn't. She won't. She stands there, and maybe it's the pallor of his face or the ominous way he's talking or even the champagne still circulating in her bloodstream, but she says, "You're kind of freaking me out, Parker."

"We're safe here," he assures her.

"Safe," she repeats. "From what?"

He's still staring out the window. His face is grim and looks five years older than she remembers him looking, even two hours earlier when he was helping her drunkenly weave to an exit from a party. In the morning she will read about the first attacks, about the creature tearing apart the city that _The Bugle_ will dub the "Green Goblin"—in the morning Peter will confess that he chased Spiderman there and saw the carnage firsthand, watched as officers died and civilians screamed fleeing from the creature's path—but for right now he is a mystery, dark and demanding, staring with eyes that have never seemed so far away.

"Peter?"

He exhales, long and slow, and at the end of it she sees the slightest quiver in his shoulders.

"It's always going to be something," he says. He is so weary. "I don't know how long I can keep this up."

She takes a hesitant step forward. There is something so intimate about the way he is talking to her, and she feels herself straining to understand him, to glean some meaning from his words. He is talking about his job tailing Spiderman, but somehow she knows that he isn't. There is something in the creases of his brow, something in the low rumble of his voice that tells her that there is much more to this than she knows, and as much as she wants to know, she is scared to ask—scared to ruin this moment, scared that she will say the wrong thing, that she will blow it and never be able to connect with him like this again.

Why does she even _want_ to? Why has it always been so important what Peter thinks of her? And why, right now, when he is so mysteriously sullen and offering no real explanation why, does her heart ache in sympathy for him in a way it never has for anybody else?

It must be Gwen. They must have fought, or something, maybe about his dangerous job. Gwen is the most important thing in Peter's little universe; five minutes alone with the two of them and anybody could tell that. So he could only be this bent out of shape if there were trouble between the two of them.

Right?

"Hey," she says. She has no idea what she is going to say until it is falling out of her mouth. She feels older, and suddenly more self-assured, and suddenly it matters less what Peter thinks of her—what matters is trying to make him feel okay. "You're going to get through this, whatever it is. You're—you're smart, and capable."

He looks at her, his face vacant with just a trace of surprise.

"Even I know that, Peter," she says. "And—well—no matter what happens, you aren't alone. You've got your aunt. And Gwen." _And me_, a small voice wants to add, but she swallows it down. "I can't—I can't tell you it'll all be okay, but I can tell you you're not alone."

She isn't expecting a response, and she doesn't get one. He doesn't say anything back, or smile appreciatively, or even nod his head, and somehow his silence is more gratifying than acknowledgement. He isn't patronizing her and pretending her words have had some phenomenal effect on him—or worse, telling her to screw off because she doesn't know anything. She's not even sure if he heard a word she said. But he's letting her stand here and absorb whatever sadness it is that he carries, and that seems much more significant in a way she can hardly begin to explain.

She waits a few minutes, and sees him shift, almost imperceptibly. Her welcome here is over. She can tell he wants to be alone.

"G'night," she says softly.

Her heart is thudding when she closes the door to her room, so hard that she is irrationally afraid Peter can hear it. She settles back onto the lumpy mattress and stares with wide eyes into the darkness of her room. Without knowing why, she understands that tonight was the end of something, and the beginning of another; without knowing why, she is terrified for morning to come.

* * *

Guess what? I've been in Nashville for two months and I'm famous!

Just kidding. I'm still working for minimum wage at a shift that starts before dawn, and talking almost exclusively to my roommate's mentally deranged cat, and writing fanfiction.

Baby steps.


	5. Chapter 5

**Perpendicular**

MJ doesn't remember much the horror of reading about the Green Goblin for the first time. She doesn't remember much the first time that she talked about him with other actresses at callbacks, or mulled it over with Harry, or worried about it at home. Maybe she would remember these things if it weren't for the memory she can never quite erase, like a reel playing over and over in her head: the first time she ever _saw _him.

After twenty-five years of living in the city, MJ has seen her fair share of crime. In Queens she was robbed twice before high school graduation, in the city she was held up at gunpoint with Gwen, and she'd spent the majority of her life prepared for carjackers, rapists, and murderers of any kind. But there is no way to prepare for a sinister, insane, genetically mutated man flying through the sky on a hoverboard at two in the afternoon.

She's on her way back from an audition when she hears something whiz past her. The noise is quiet and sneaks up on her; right as he passes it becomes momentarily _excruciatingly_ loud, but MJ is texting Gwen and she is used to weird traffic noises in this city, so she is completely unfazed and doesn't even bother looking up until she hears the screams.

At first all she sees is a green blur. She stands, rooted to the spot, as the blur becomes more distant, and the screams intensify. A rush of adrenaline kicks in and she reels around, trying to understand what everyone is screaming at, when she sees it in the middle of the street: some kind of detonator, sparking with flames, that is sure to go off any second.

"_Shit_," is all MJ manages before she hits the curb and starts to run.

It's too late. She hears the explosion and she's still running as she feels the heat of it on her back, and she feels the scream rip through her throat as the impact of it sends her sprawling to the ground.

She has to get up. She tries to scramble to her feet and everything becomes distinctly wrong, and she can't figure out what it is. From her perch on the ground she sees people rushing by through the smoke, limbs flailing, mouths wide open, slapping the pavement around her, but all she hears is a persistent and ominous ringing in her ears.

She can't hear. She can't hear _anything_. She touches her ear, horrified and confused, and looks up just in time to see a stranger crash into her and knock her back to the ground.

Her elbow hits the ground and absorbs the weight of her whole body and she feels the shock of it in every one of her bones.

It hurts. Holy _shit_, it hurts. It's harder to get up this time but there is something primal and insistent stirring in her gut, and she moves anyway, pushing through the smoke and the soundless vacuum.

Then the smoke starts to clear, sooner than she thought it would, and through it she can see people abandoning their cars and store shop owners shutting and locking their doors in the faces of screaming people trying to fight their way inside. It feels like a war zone, and she is suddenly chilled by the inhumanity of it, how people don't even look at each other as they fly by. As if nobody else matters, as if nobody else exists.

She should be more like them. She keeps getting distracted, staring at the madness of it all. Why isn't she running?

She looks up to the sky and sees the green blur coming closer, and she is mesmerized, staring up at it in horror and fascination. She needs to get off the street, that much is clear. But where can she go?

There's an alley to her left. She is about to duck into it, when she looks back up one more time to see that the green figure is coming alarmingly close, and as she turns her attention back to the alley she locks onto a pair of the most desperate and terrified eyes she has ever seen.

A woman is trapped in her car, wedged between two other vehicles blocking her doors, and pounding against the window glass. MJ looks away. It isn't her responsibility. There's nothing she can do with her elbow this bent out of shape, nothing she could do even if it wasn't. It would be _stupid_ of her to run over there.

So she makes her decision. She turns back to the alley.

_No_.

She stops. Frozen. Remembering the feeling of that gun pointed at her head all those years ago, the helplessness and indescribable fear. And she turns back around.

Her hearing is somewhat restored, just in time to hear the most chilling, grating cackle she has ever heard in her entire life, a sound that will stick with her for years. She feels a shadow right overhead, and hears another explosion from a device that must have been thrown a few blocks away. But she keeps running, through the rush of the returning sounds, the sirens and the screaming and her own ragged breathing.

The woman is not much older than MJ. She stops pounding at the window and as MJ approaches she bursts into grateful tears, and MJ feels her heart wrench, thinking of how easily she almost abandoned her, and thinking of how useless she is even now that she has.

First she tries one of the back doors, the one that seems the least jammed, but she can't even wedge her own body in the space.

"Where are you, little spider?"

_Oh, God_. She hears the blood rushing in her ears at the sound of the Green Goblin's voice booming through the street. She kicks the door with her boot in frustration, and jiggles at the handle again, barely able to reach it.

It's hopeless. There's nothing she can do.

She keeps trying, though, because she has to believe that if she were stuck like this that somebody would come back and try to save her. She has to believe that in this city of faceless strangers, somebody would turn back.

She hears another cackle and glances up. He's directly overhead now, and she sees him in his full and terrible glory. His entire body is sheathed in green metallic armor that glints menacingly under the glare of the sun, and he is suspended midair by a silver board with sharp angles. The mask on his face is perpetually smiling, and its bug eyes seem to be staring everywhere, all-seeing and inescapable.

It's coming toward her. She gives the door handle another hopeless wrench. This is it, she somehow understands. The Green Goblin is coming for her. She braces her shoulders and ducks her head down as if it will somehow lessen the blow of whatever is coming, when she hears the scraping of metal and a voice yelling indistinctly.

She hazards a glance at the red and blue streak beside her. Her knees are almost weak with relief.

_Spiderman_.

In a single stride he has torn shoved one of the cars out of the way and torn the door off for the woman to escape. She watches him, dumbstruck, and for another fleeting moment he turns to her and yells something again.

She can't hear him. He isn't nearly as loud as the Goblin, and the ringing in her ears is still overwhelming. To her surprise he grabs her by the shoulders, with enough strength that it suddenly occurs to her that he could break her as easily as a twig.

"I said get _out_ of here. _Now!_"

Then he releases her. The woman scrambles out of the car, and Spiderman slings away, chasing the Goblin. MJ hesitates, still feeling the impression of Spiderman's palms on her shoulders, and the weight of a gaze she can't even see from behind his mask.

The woman from the car grabs her by the hand. "Come on," she says. "We've gotta move."

This time, MJ runs.

* * *

MJ doesn't have insurance. It's embarrassing to have to call Harry and ask him to come with her to the clinic, and more embarrassing when he shows up all flustered as if there are organs falling out of her, but after a few hours of waiting and insisting she does _not_ want him calling his father's personal physician, she gets her arm x-rayed and gets a sling fitted for her newly fractured elbow.

"This is so fucked up," Harry keeps saying over and over again. He's reading about it on his phone, pulling up article after article, demanding that she recount every single detail for him.

His eyes are almost maddened with fear. In contrast she feels a strange kind of calm, and the more panicked he gets, the more impatient with him she feels.

"You could have _died_," he says in the taxi on the ride home.

She leans against the seat. Her elbow is throbbing. "I'm aware."

"What the hell are the police doing?"

"You didn't see this guy," said MJ. She wants to gesture with her arms but stops herself at the first painful twinge. "He's just … he's inhuman. He has superpowers or something."

"Well, then—what the hell is Spiderman doing? Why do we even let that guy run around the city if he can't—"

"He saved me," MJ snaps, actually losing her patience with him for the first time. "If he hadn't swooped in when he did I probably wouldn't even _be_ here right now. It's not like he's slacking off or anything."

She turns her attention out to the window. He is really starting to grate on her. She knows he means well, that he's only worried—that Harry is used to being able to control and protect all the important things in his world, and it makes him angry that he can't now—but she doesn't need this. What she needs is to lay down in her little closet-room in the dark, or mindlessly watch television with Gwen and a bag of chips. She doesn't want to deal with this. She wants to go home.

"I just don't know what I'd do if anything ever happened to you," Harry says quietly.

She slumps a bit in her seat, feeling badly for telling him off. His hand is resting on his leg and she rests her palm on it, from her good arm.

"I'm sure Spiderman will take care of it soon," she says.

Harry stiffens. "Somebody else should be doing something. We can't leave it all to one guy."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean my father is the head of OsCorp, for Christ's sake," he says, genuinely agitated. "Can't we come up with something good enough to stop some freak flying around on a boogie board?"

He offers to come up to the apartment with her, and she says no, that she just wants to sleep. He tries to insist, saying that he wants to make sure that she's safe, but she tells him she highly doubts that there's anything he'll be able to do if a crazy drug trip of a super villain comes knocking at the window. He leaves looking a little hurt, but she is too tired to deal with it right now.

All the locks are done up on the apartment door so she figures she'll be the only one home.

"Mary Jane," says Peter, before she even finishes walking in the door.

The first thing she notices is the angry red scrape on the left side of his forehead. "Hey," she says, gesturing to it, but he has crossed the distance between them so quickly that she is surprised into silence.

He looks her up and down. "You're okay," he says.

She nods. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. What happened to your—"

"I fell," he says dismissively, "the Green Goblin—"

"You were there too?"

"Yes," says Peter, "and I saw—I thought you were—" He looks inexplicably flustered, and goes on to say, "I just had a feeling you might have been there, too. Didn't you have an audition in The Village?" he asks, talking too quickly, with a sheepish hand scratching at the back of his neck.

"Um—yeah, yeah, I did," she says, surprised that he could even remember that. "I didn't see you there."

"Your arm," he says, looking at her sling.

"Oh." She sighs. "Some asswipe knocked me down when everyone started to run and I fell on it. This thing's gonna be on my arm for like a month and a half."

And that's when it hits her: she's totally screwed. No more auditions, no more promotional work, no more quick modeling stints on the side. With her arm all messed up like this her employability has now hit a brand new low.

She's about to tell him. About the rent, about how she won't be able to get a job or anything close to one, and would they mind if she paid them back later. But Peter is staring at her arm. "You didn't run," he says, his voice low, almost a murmur.

She frowns. "What?"

He looks up at her and she feels a strange, embarrassing heat flush into her face at the way he seems to consider her, and she thinks that maybe this is the first time he's ever looked at her and seen someone more than Gwen's ditzy little friend.

He clears his throat. "I'm glad you're alright," he says.

"Yeah," she says. "You too."

He takes a sudden step back, and she feels an unexpected relief.

"Chinese for dinner?" he says, uncharacteristically chummy.

She looks down, away from his eyes. At her stupid dangling arm and the broken laces on one of her shoes.

"Yeah. Sure."

They spend the rest of the night on opposite sides of the room. He is friendly to her, and she is friendly back, there is something oddly forced about it, like they have suddenly become strangers. They eat at the table and ask about each other's days without looking at each other. She learns that his boss is trying to paint the Green Goblin out to be a hero, and that his aunt is considering selling the old house in Queens that neighbors hers. He listens as she tells him about the audition she went to before the attack, and he helps her uncap all the Chinese food boxes on account of her useless arm.

It is all polite and cordial, and she wanted this, right? Shouldn't she _want_ to get along with Peter?

So why is she staring across the table at him, waiting for him to say something snarky, something mean? Why is she waiting for that moment of relish when she gets to say something biting back?

"Does it hurt?" he asks. "Your arm."

"Yeah," she says. It hasn't occurred to her until just now, but it's throbbing unpleasantly at her side.

"Well, take it easy," he says. "I'm sure we can take care of the rent and everything until it's healed."

Somehow as he retreats into his room she dislikes him more than she ever has.

* * *

The next few weeks are rocky and strange.

She hardly ever sees Peter, which is understandable: the city is under nearly constant attacks from the Green Goblin, and Peter needs to be chasing Spiderman around for pictures now more than ever. What's worse for him is that he seems to be inexplicably unsuccessful: he hardly manages to get any shots with more than indistinct green blurs, and amateurs with camera phones are outdoing him.

Gwen is barely ever home either, and when she is, she is decidedly on edge. She frets by the television, by the phone, by the window. It's as if she expects the Goblin to appear at any moment and murder them. Every fifteen minutes she mutters about how stupid Peter is being, following him around, and every fifteen minutes MJ stands there helplessly, because how can she comfort Gwen when she has seen firsthand how easily the Green Goblin wreaks his brand of havoc?

She does, however, see a lot of Harry. More than she usually does, which is saying something now that they've been seriously dating for over a year. He is almost always within a block's radius of her apartment for one strange reason or another, always calling to check up on her, and seeming more paranoid with every passing day.

She can't blame him. She can't blame Gwen, either. The attacks are terrifying and random and it seems like there isn't one safe place left in New York.

And yet life goes on. MJ can't let herself feel the same horror that everybody else does. Maybe it's stupid of her, but she can't help but think that Spiderman has saved her twice now—surely if something ever happened, he would save her again. And it's her possibly misplaced faith in him that stops her from panicking like the rest of the city.

Still, there isn't much for her to do, anyway. It's a miserable first few weeks with her arm in its sling. She tries to take temp jobs but she does everything too slowly. Typing is a bitch. Running errands proves nearly impossible. And for whatever ungodly reason, she gets hit on by more creeps than she thought humanly possible: "What's the matter with your arm, baby?"s and "Get better soon, darling"s all accompanied by unwelcome leers on the street. It seems to welcome far more unwanted attention than her work as a promo girl ever did.

Harry drops less than subtle hints about her living situation over and over again, until one day he flat out says over lunch, "I want you to move in with me."

She takes a careful bite of her salad. "I live with Peter and Gwen," she says.

Harry scowls. "C'mon, MJ. Don't you think they want some space? You can't live with them forever."

She knows he's right. But that doesn't make it any less offensive for him to say.

"You're such a romantic about this whole thing, aren't you?" she asks wryly. "You really know how to convince a girl."

"I mean it," he says, in that high-strung way he talks lately. "You'd be safer there. Really. We have guards, and a security system, and we're out of the thick of things—"

"And the Goblin has bombs, and a floating glider, and apparently no mercy," says MJ right back. "I doubt your fancy apartment will count for anything. I'd say that makes it even _more_ of a target."

Harry blows out an exasperated, impatient burst of air. All of him seems exaggerated: the way he is wringing his hands through his hair, and the jerky, stilted way he moves his body. There are dark circles under his eyes, and there have been for weeks.

Nobody notices. He isn't the only one. Smarter people have left the city long before now; she doesn't know why she stays, or why Peter and Gwen stay, but she is reasonably certain why Harry has stayed—reasonably certain that it's only for her sake. And she feels another unwelcome pang of guilt at the thought of it.

She doesn't want to have this kind of influence on him. She doesn't want to have this kind of influence on anyone. But she can't leave New York, because there is no place else she can go.

"Look," she says, trying to placate him. "When we move in together … I want it to be because it's the right time for us to move in together. Not because there's a madman loose in the city."

Harry is still sullen. "You're saying you don't think you're ready to move in, then."

She doesn't answer him soon enough, the gears turning in her head, trying to come up with something better to say. "It's just—"

"Because we've been dating for over a year, Mary Jane," he says. "Shouldn't we be ready by now?"

She feels her neck flushing with embarrassment. It has always been different with Harry than it has with other boys, because with other boys she had some semblance of control over the relationship: she called the shots, she knew where it was going and where it wasn't. But Harry is different, or maybe the situation is different. They're older now. They're supposed to want these things, to settle down, to get married. It's the logical next step, and she knows he isn't being unreasonable.

"It's just that I think—"

"I think there's some other reason you don't want to move in," he says. His voice is quiet and withdrawn. "And Mary Jane … if there's some sort of doubt in your mind about me…"

"_No_," she says, a little too suddenly.

"Hear me out," he says. His face looks drained. Exhausted. "I don't want to push for something you don't want. Just tell me now, okay? Because I love you. And I think you know … what you mean to me. And where I want us to go."

"Harry," she says. Just his name, and nothing more. Because honestly she isn't sure what she should say to this. How can she look him in the eye and tell him she loves him, that she wants to _want_ this, but she's just not ready?

She stares at him across the table. He really is devastatingly handsome, even in this state. She feels that stir in her gut, reminding her of those first few months they were together, when everything was new and exciting and full of promise and anticipation. She does love him. She does. And she knows that she always will.

So why doesn't this feel right?

"Please, Mary Jane," he says. "I just want you to be happy. I want to _make _you happy."

"I am happy," she says. The words feel hollow and forced on their way up her throat, but they come out genuine enough, and when he glances up at her she can tell that he believes her. "You always make me happy," she adds.

There is a beat between them. An understanding of sorts. They stare at each other from across the table, and she can almost feel the balance shifting. This is the moment that she lets this move forward. This is the moment that she moves forward with him and doesn't look back. And she knows she should treasure this, she knows that this is a once in a lifetime kind of feeling, but everyone around them is talking in hushed, panicked voices, and even she can't help but flinch anytime she sees a car outside pass by too fast.

He takes her hand and laces his hand through hers. It is all very solemn and permanent.

"Come stay with me," he says. "I've wanted this for a long time."

She feels her heart beating in her fingers, tightly wound with his. It feels like the whole rest of the world could be shot to hell, but she has this. She has this one perfect and beautiful thing.

"I will," she says, and she means it. But she bites her lip and then the words tumble out: "In a few months. Just—let's just give it a few months, because by then all the insanity will be over."

Harry closes his eyes, and she is scared of what he will say next. But instead he gives a weary nod and says, "Alright. A few months."

She feels a swell of relief so large she can't even let herself feel the guilt that comes with it.

* * *

When MJ comes home one night in April, Gwen is crying. Not the quiet kind of tears that can be subtly hidden with an excuse about allergies or sleepiness, but the big, heaving kind of tears that she has only seen Gwen produce two or three times in all the years they've known each other.

"What happened?" asks MJ.

Gwen looks up at her, her mouth open mid-hiccup in surprise. She clearly had not heard MJ come in. She quivers for a moment, struggling to say something, but MJ feels the cold and unsettling realization wash over her before she can.

"Where's Peter?"

Gwen's face starts to crumble. "He didn't come home," she says, and that's all she manages before another suppressed sob escapes her and she leans forward as if the impact of it is more than she can bear.

MJ feels the unwitting panic trying to creep over her, but she won't let it. "What do you mean? Where was he?"

She shouldn't have to ask that, of course. He was chasing the Goblin again.

"Come here," says MJ. Gwen is crying so hard that MJ is afraid she will fall over. She guides Gwen over to the couch, where Gwen sits down, looking completely detached to what is happening around her. MJ feels strangely authoritative, with a calm she has never possessed taking hold of her. Gwen is falling apart. She can't afford to fall apart with her.

"I—I looked everywhere," Gwen gasps. She is shaking her head. Her hair is loose and matted against the wetness in her cheeks. "He—he didn't come home, and it's been hours, and I know—there was an attack—"

"Where?" asks MJ. She tries to sound sensitive but it comes out like a demand.

"By OsCorp," Gwen bursts, "I've—I've been out there looking, I tried everything, the police, his aunt, and I can't—oh, God."

MJ sits there beside Gwen, perfectly still. She should comfort her. She should say something or put an arm around her, but she doesn't. She knows it won't make any difference, she knows because she is staring at Gwen and feeling so intensely the things that Gwen is feeling that she cannot imagine anybody being able to right this.

Suddenly the spell is broken. She has deceived herself into feeling safe here for so long that she had started to feel invincible, and now they have all paid the price.

She swallows hard. _Peter_.

"How long?" MJ's voice is shaking, so she steels herself and says firmly, "How long has he been gone?"

"Hours." Gwen swipes at her eyes with her palms and mascara streaks across her face and hands. "Since—since three o'clock."

MJ stands up and the couch creaks, tilting toward Gwen's weight. Her heart is fluttering madly in her chest. She imagines a string of horrible scenarios: Peter in a bloody heap in some alley, his lens cracked and shattered on the camera still strung around his neck; Peter dangling from an impossible height as the Green Goblin makes him yet another random and helpless victim to his terror; Peter lifeless, pale, without a single trace of that mocking half-smirk that she has come to know so well.

She squeezes her eyes shut tight for just one second. "You stay here," she says to Gwen. "He might come home."

"Where are you going?" Gwen asks, her throat still clogged with tears.

MJ throws her sweater back on. "To help you look," she says.

Gwen's chin is quaking with emotion. "MJ …"

She doesn't finish the sentence, but MJ understands the gist of it. It's been too long. If he's not home by now, he probably won't ever be.

MJ shakes her head. "Stay here," she says. "He's coming home."

It sounds like a lie, so she shuts the door behind her without looking back at Gwen. She feels numb, and very unlike herself as she descends the stairs of the apartment building and heads toward the subway. It feels like dreaming, like it's happening to somebody else.

The arrival of the subway jilts her back into the presence, whips her hair back and reminds her to step forward off the platform, to keep moving. She clutches the seams of her sweater, pulling it close against her, trying to keep herself together. She tries to think of anything on the planet besides Peter being dead, but wherever she lets herself drift she goes right back to it in an instant.

What MJ wants to know is where the hell Spiderman was when Peter disappeared. Didn't Peter say they were friends? So why the _hell_ did he let this happen?

Suddenly she hates Spiderman. Her slowly-healing arm throbs in its sling as she thinks on it, hating him a little bit more with every subway stop. Peter should have been important to him. Peter, who took immeasurable risks just to get this guy's good side, who defended Spiderman at every possible cost—where the hell was their hero when Peter got caught in the fray?

She is so distraught that she almost misses her stop. She tears out of the subway station and emerges to find that the sun has sunk into the sky in the brief few minutes she was underground.

The intimidating shadow of OsCorp seems to overwhelm the entire block. She looks up at it and sees a crew already attending to the wreckage, which seems to be focused on the upper left side of the building, on the opposite end from where Gwen works. The buildings nearby are also noticeably damaged, and the streets around her are nearly empty. The people left behind are walking with their heads down, and walking fast.

She takes a few hesitant steps forward and feels like an idiot. She has no idea what to do here, or who to ask for help, or where she should even start looking. It occurs to her to call Harry, but somehow she doesn't want him involved in this, doesn't want him to know how frazzled she is by Peter's disappearance and how quickly she is willing to throw herself into the wreckage on the slim chance of finding him.

She checks her phone, hoping for a text from Gwen, or a call from Peter. Maybe it was all a mistake. Maybe his phone died and he worked late and his award-winning picture of Spiderman fighting the Goblin will be in the paper tomorrow.

It's a silly thought, but it gives her the strength to keep walking toward OsCorp, and the courage to peer into every dark space and alley that she passes along the way.

It's unusually balmy for a night in April. Although there is a certain dread seeping in with every step she takes, she can't help but imagine a world before the Goblin, where she and Harry and Gwen and Peter would all be hanging out on the rooftop of the apartment building with a bottle of cheap wine from the convenience store down the street. She imagines the stellar view of the city, and the feeling that the four of them are untouchable, on top of the world.

It makes her chest ache, thinking of how simple things once were.

"Miss? Can I ask what you're doing out here?"

MJ startles, and turns to see a police officer. He is staring at her with exaggerated patience, the way that men do when they assume she is lost or being stupid. She knows she could easily blow him off by widening her eyes and stringing some sort of "gee, thank goodness you're here, officer" together, but she's jacked on adrenaline and fear and what comes out instead is, "I'm walking, what does it look like I'm doing?"

He looks at her with a little bit more scrutiny and a lot less patience, his eyes lingering just for a second on the sling around her arm. "This is a closed off area. Did you miss the police tape?"

"The entire city is roped off by police tape. How else am I supposed to get home?" she asks crossly.

"I'm going to have to escort you off the premises."

"Why?" she asks, and only then does she notice the small, uniformed crowd around an alley half a block away, loading something into an ambulance.

The officer starts to say something to her, but she isn't listening, overwhelmed by the buzz in her ears that suddenly compels her. She knows that her window of ability to slip past him ends in less than two seconds, so she knuckles down and runs. He hears her yelling behind her, hears the thud of his feet against the pavement, but she has already taken off at breakneck speed, her arm screaming in protest, eyes streaming and lungs tearing with the effort to move.

It's Peter. They've found Peter. She's almost sure of it, but she has to see for herself, has to see him before they load him into the ambulance so she has _something_ to tell Gwen when she gets her on the phone.

It is a strange mixture of crushing relief and terror as she approaches. She keeps waiting for somebody to yank her back, for somebody to notice and stop her before she gets there, but nobody does. She hurtles down the sidewalk just as she sees the beginnings of a stretcher emerging from the alley.

"Peter," she gasps out involuntarily, so winded that she doubts anyone would have been able to understand her.

That's when it happens: somebody grabs her shoulder and she screams, both in surprise and in pain and her fractured elbow being jerked. The shock of it sends her sprawling to the ground, but on her way down she sees it, the unmistakable, undeniable, horrible truth: there is a sheet covering the body.

Somebody catches her before she hits the ground, but MJ is beyond gratitude, beyond pain, beyond feeling anything. She keeps fighting, tearing away from the hands that grab her, and gains just enough purchase on another few squares of cement that she can see a tuft of unruly brown hair emerging from the sheets.

She stops running. The hands grab her from behind and she lets them, sinking into the impact of them.

"You can't be here," the man behind her says.

She is thinking the same thing. She can't be here. She can't be watching Peter Parker's body get hauled off by strangers, into an ambulance headed god only knew where.

Everything starts to blur out of focus, and she tries to speak as they haul her off the scene, but all that comes out of her are indistinct croaks.

Peter can't be dead. He _can't_ be.

"Is there someone we can call? Is there some place you should be?"

The man is still firm but gentler now. She turns her back on him. She doesn't want to hear his words, doesn't want to know that he exists, that _anyone_ exists in this inconceivable and terrible moment. She starts walking, forcing one foot to follow the other, holding her breath so she won't let out the desperate gulp of despair she is holding in.

She squeezes her eyes shut, tears leaking down her face, her hands shaking with hysteria. The officer is following her, about to ask her more questions, but she can't handle this for one more second. So she does what she has always done and times like this: grits her teeth and runs.

She runs and runs, runs as if somebody is chasing her, runs as if there will never be enough distance between her and that piece of tarp of Peter's head. She runs until she feels her lungs burning, begging for release, and then she runs faster. There is nobody in her way; the streets are empty, soundless, and the high-rises and towers all seem to cast ugly shadows as they watch her.

Eventually the edges of her vision start to darken and she has to stop, heaving so loudly that her voice echoes in her own ears. Her knees wobble and threaten to drop her. She grabs the side of a building and struggles for air that doesn't come fast enough.

A few years ago she hardly even knew his name. And now—and _now —_

No. No, this isn't about her, or how she feels, or how she shouldn't have felt. It's so much bigger than that little voice in the back of her head, of that quiet, traitorous thought she had humming just under the surface of her fingertips over the past few months. She had none of Peter, had no claim on him, and always knew she never could.

She lets herself think it. Think it deliberately and horribly, for the first and the last time.

She loves him.

_Loved_ him.

She wrenches herself away from the building, suddenly irrationally sure that she will burn anything she touches. She considered Peter for a moment. For _less_ than a moment.

He's gone. It doesn't matter. She heaves in another breath, until her throat feels raw and her chest aches with an impossible grief. He's _gone_. He's gone, and somebody has to tell Gwen.

But not now. No, not now. Gwen deserves to be the one who falls apart, to be the one who screams and runs and does crazy, irrational things. So MJ will collect herself. She will calm herself and tell Gwen in a calm and unselfish way, and be the strong one, because MJ does not have the right to do it any other way.

So she wanders. She has unwittingly run to the center of the Empire State campus, where all the doors are locked and the windows drawn and it seems as if the semester has ended early, and the students have all left the city. She looks up at their old familiar haunts—at the dorm where she used to live, the cafeteria where she begrudgingly tolerated Peter whenever Gwen brought him along, at the English department where she had that class with him sophomore year.

She wonders where she will go now. She can't stay here. Harry will understand, and will probably come with her, but suddenly MJ doesn't want that, she doesn't want _any_ of it. She wants to buy a plane ticket and leave and never look back. She wants to be so far from here, so buried and anonymous and separate, that even Harry can't ever track her down.

MJ stops in the street, really considering it. Her savings account is empty. She has about a hundred dollars to her name. She could hardly get a train ticket out of the city, let alone get on a plane.

Her feet itch with the urge to keep moving. Who can she even call? Who does she know now, besides Gwen and Harry, two people she isn't sure she can ever bear to look in the eye again?

Nobody. She doesn't have any other friends or family outside of that tiny apartment. It has never occurred to her until now, because the four of them together has always seemed like more than enough to sustain her, but she doesn't have a single person in the world she can turn to now.

She has reached the edges of the main campus when her phone comes to life in her hands. She stares at it, forgetting it was even there, surprised she even held onto it.

It's Gwen. Of course it is. Of course they would have told her by now, especially since her mother is engaged to the captain of the NYPD.

MJ braces herself, knowing that she can't ignore this call. She wills her voice not to shake, not to reveal any of the anguish and shame of the last half an hour. "Hello?"

"He's back." Gwen's voice is breathless, but MJ hears her, and feels herself sinking to the ground, clutching the phone to her ear like a lifeline. "He came home."

* * *

MJ doesn't see Peter that night. The door to the room he shares with Gwen is closed and MJ doesn't knock, just creeps into her room and shuts the light off and sleeps without even taking her shoes off. When she wakes up the next morning she can tell even without a window in her room that it is well past morning and nearing the afternoon, but she rolls back over and shuts her eyes, wishing she could sleep again.

Peter is alright, and is probably just a few feet beyond her door, sitting in the living room the way he always does when he is touching up his photos. There is a visceral kind of joy, but a guilt even more intense that follows it, and she can't even turn on the light, afraid that he'll see it trickle from under her door and know she is awake.

She has a temp job at a loans office to get to. She needs to get up. She dresses quietly in her room with the intent of scurrying out before Peter notices, but the moment she emerges her eyes connect with his and her body forgets to move.

He is standing by their window. His whole body is tilted toward her room, almost as if he had been waiting for her, but that's a stupid thought. The television is right next to her door and she can hear the faint buzz of the news coverage on the Green Goblin behind her.

There's a black and purple ring around one of his eyes, but other than that he looks so whole, so casual and unaffected. Her heart is slamming against her rib cage and he looks up at her with a flicker of amusement so incongruous with the intensity of the moment that she almost deflates right in front of him.

"Late for work?" he asks. It is strangely magnificent to hear him speak, when only a few hours ago she thought she never would again.

She wants to scream, or throw her arms around him, to feel the completeness and warmth of him and know that he is really there.

"Yeah," she says instead.

He nods, and it shouldn't be an awkward moment, until she makes it one by standing there wordlessly, staring at him.

"You better get going, then," he says.

She continues to stare. Is he really going to act like last night didn't happen? Is he really going to pretend that she didn't walk in on his girlfriend bawling her eyes out, convinced he was dead? Does he even _know_ that she spent the better part of last night running around New York to look for him?

He wrinkles his nose. "Did you lose something?" he asks, trying to reach for an explanation for her behavior.

She blinks and makes herself look at him. He is not handsome. He is goofy and never commits to smiling and when he does, it's sloppy and spontaneous and almost looks like a grimace. He has probably never seen a hairbrush in his life. He wears ridiculous ironic hipster t-shirts, wears them until there are holes in the armpits and Gwen has to throw them away on the sly.

But somehow this makes him perfect. Somehow every little thing she has hated about him over the years, every little thing that has become so gratingly familiar, has shifted and redefined itself without any warning.

She tears her eyes away from him. She is probably the worst person in the world.

"No," she says. "I'm heading out."

"See ya."

She doesn't answer. She shuts the door behind her and is grateful for the space between them. Then she pulls her phone out of her purse—it's about to die, but she has just enough energy left in it to text Harry, to tell him that she loves him, to tell him that she can't wait to move in with him, and she's ready to start looking at apartments today.

* * *

At my job when people order omelets I have to ask them if they want eggs, egg whites, or egg beaters. Today, on St. Patrick's day, a day of notoriously irresponsible drinking, a man looked me in the eye and said, "Wife beaters, please."


	6. Chapter 6

**Perpendicular**

One night there's a knock on the door to the apartment. Gwen is across town celebrating her brother's birthday and Parker is probably hanging for dear life off a building with a camera strapped to his neck, so MJ is the only one home. She tiptoes to the door and presses her face up to the peephole.

"Dad?"

She is so surprised to see him that it doesn't even occur to her to keep her mouth shut. Even through the distorted glass she can see he is swaggering, that his eyes are red-rimmed and his clothes unkempt. It's strange, that she can remember her mother so vividly, but she has very little memory of what her father was like before she died; he must have been different then, she thinks, but all she can really remember is living with a drunk.

"Lemme in," he grumbles.

The floor seems to swallow MJ's feet. She can't move, paralyzed in front of the door. "You're drunk," she says tremulously, wondering who in the world was stupid enough to give him her address in the first place.

There are a few beats of silence. MJ purses her lips, hardly breathing, and waits. She thinks maybe he will say something to weaken her, something about how he misses her or how the house isn't the same without her, and then she will feel bad and open the door for him. She braces herself, telling herself she is strong enough not to fall for it, and because she is anticipating the sweet talk she has to bite back a yelp of surprise when she hears the weight of both of her father's fists hit the door.

"The fuck you think you are?" she hears him slur.

"Get out of here," she screams back, too scared to care if the neighbors hear. "Get the _fuck_ out of here, I swear to God, I'll call the police."

She's bluffing. She would never do that to him and he knows it. She backs away from the door, hating herself for how helpless and humiliated she feels, knowing she can't do anything to shut him up or make him leave. He throws the weight of his body against the door and this time she does scream, because he is coming close to knocking it down with the sheer force of his meaty shoulder against the wood.

"_Stop_," she gasps, because it feels like the wind has been knocked out of her. She hasn't seen him in _years_, not since halfway through college at her aunt's funeral, and even then they hardly spoke to each other. What the _fuck_ is he doing here, what does he _want—_

"I can give you money," she blurts, because it's the only thing she can think of. "Just—don't do anything, I'll slip it under the door—"

"Open this _fucking door_ right now or I'll—"

MJ doesn't know what he says next, because she claps her hands against her ears, trying to block him out. She remembers doing this as a kid, even doing it as a teenager, but she never imagined in a thousand lifetimes that she'd have to do it again. Even with her hearing muffled she hears the crash of his body against the door again, and her eyes flit to the bedroom Gwen and Peter share.

There's a fire escape. MJ is terrified of heights, but she is terrified of her father far more. She takes a step forward. They're twenty-eight floors up. She squeezes her eyes shut at the thought of it, but what choice does she have?

Suddenly she feels two hands grab her shoulders. She shrieks, batting herself away, trying to wriggle herself toward the ground to avoid him, but the hands are firm and surprisingly strong. Her eyes burst open in shock.

_Peter_.

"I—I thought you weren't home," she blubbers.

His eyes are hard, his features drawn. She has seen this look on his face only a few times, usually after there's some sort of attack on the city and Gwen chews him out for putting himself in danger by following it with his camera. He takes his hands off her shoulders and says evenly, "Go into my room and lock the door."

MJ stares at him incredulously, then flinches at the impact of her father slamming the door again. "B-But that's my—Peter, you can't, there's nothing you can do."

"I've got this under control," he says, and maybe it's because he seems so sure, maybe it's because she is terrified beyond rational thought, but for some reason she believes him. She lets him lead her into the room and listens as he shuts the door behind her, listens to Peter open the door to the apartment, but when she listens for the sound of commotion in the hallway she doesn't hear a thing.

Her heart is hammering so hard it feels like it is pulsing in her throat. She turns her back to the door, shell-shocked, staring at the empty bed and the two shut laptops on their chargers and an orderly row of books on the bookshelf. She knows Peter wasn't home, she knows it for a fact.

She hears him open the door to the room and walk in behind her. But she doesn't turn around. She's staring at the open window, at the decorative white curtain fluttering in the breeze.

He didn't. Did he?

"He's gone," says Peter.

She turns to face him, trying to seem steady, even a little defiant. She doesn't know what she is expecting. Maybe that he will poke fun at her like he always does, or act like some sort of overblown hero for rescuing her. It's worse, though—she turns to face him and all she sees are his brown eyes wide with pity.

Suddenly she hates him for being here, for fixing this, for knowing it happened in the first place. She wants to push him or call him names. She wants to call his sweater stupid or call him four eyes or do _anything_ that would make everything seem normal again.

Instead all that comes out is a blurted, red-faced, "I'm sorry."

Peter shakes his head. "Don't be."

"I really am," she says, because she doesn't think it should be that simple, because nothing ever is.

"Why are you sorry? It's not your fault," says Peter, heading into the kitchen.

It is, though, isn't it? For leaving home after graduation, taking all of the important things and throwing everything else away, and never saying a word. She follows Peter, feeling a little delirious, and continues, "He knows where we live now, and he's—he's going to just keep coming back, I'll have to move out, I couldn't do that to you guys, it wouldn't be—"

"Don't worry," Peter says, his voice uncharacteristically dark. "I'll make sure he doesn't bother you again."

It's almost laughable, the look of confidence on his face. She stares at him, bewildered, wondering what he could possibly mean by that. There's no way Peter can be here all of the time, and even if he could, how does he know he can handle her father every time? How did he even handle him just now?

And _why is the twenty-eighth story window open?_

* * *

MJ needs to move. That much is clear. She doesn't tell anybody about her father's break-in attempt, or at least she doesn't tell Harry, because she suspects that Peter already told Gwen. She leaves to meet up with Harry a few nights after it happens to try and make some concrete plans for the apartment they've been looking at together. She is so desperate to be somewhere beyond her father's reach that she can't even let her pride be wounded by the idea of Harry paying for everything.

When she arrives at Harry's apartment she brings a bottle of wine, and wears a top that just slightly exposes the strap to a bra she knows he particularly likes. It's been like this lately. She has gone out of her way to try and impress him, to convince him that she wants this, or maybe to convince herself. She isn't sure anymore. She doesn't dwell too long on it, because when she does she lets her mind wander to places that it really shouldn't, to ideas she knows better than to have.

Harry is happy to see her, opening the door with a flourish and a smile. She grins back. His enthusiasm is infectious. She prances in and fishes two wine glasses out of the bar in his living room, kicks her shoes off luxuriously and tries to let herself absorb the grandness of this, of a promise of a new beginning and the smile of a boy who actually loves her back.

They lean against each other on the couch, and just sit and talk and stretch as the sun sets into the sky. She laughs so hard that her gut hurts, and talks so animatedly that she starts to lose her voice. It's a welcome change from the last few months of worrying about the Green Goblin, of watching Gwen pace the apartment and Peter sulk in guiltily with his camera at all hours of the day.

"We should have curtains," she says. "Lacy white ones. So the sun still comes in."

Harry laughs. She can feel the rumble against her skin. "I was deeply concerned about the window decorations myself."

She arches her back lazily, staring up at him, her head nearly in his lap. It is warm in here, and safe. It is the opposite of her childhood. She remembers the view from her bedroom window, how she would see the white lace curtains draping the window of the neighbor's house. Peter's house, she knows now, but it doesn't matter whose house it was. She dreamed of those curtains. It looked like home. It looked like a place someone could be happy and simple and whole.

He starts tracing circles into her shoulder with his finger. She smiles, the wine buzzing happily in her cheeks, knowing where this is heading. She leans forward and he cups a hand under her neck to kiss him, and it's one of those perfect kisses, deep and full. When she pulls away they're both a little tipsy and smiling at each other.

"Thank god I finally got out of that stupid sling," she says, raising her eyebrows just suggestively enough to be tasteful and still get her point across.

He touches the smooth skin of her healed arm, his hand running down to her wrists, then resting on her thigh. "I can think of a few things we haven't tried in a while."

She giggles, and that's how she knows she's more than a little bit tipsy, or maybe just happier than she has felt in weeks. "Hold on," she says, wriggling off the couch. "I just have to pee."

It could be a moment killer, but she figures it won't be if she comes back mostly undressed. She has had a sizable portion of wine, though, and has a notoriously small bladder, so she can't really be blamed for it. She ducks into the bathroom and is reaching for the soap when her arm twitches just slightly and knocks Harry's electric razor off the counter.

She leans down and grabs it, then opens the cabinet to stick it back where she knows it usually lives, and that's when she sees it: a row of unfamiliar pill boxes, all unmarked, sitting neatly where there used to be nothing but dental floss and toothpaste.

There isn't even a moment of hesitation before she picks one of them up and unscrews the lid, peering at the tiny white capsules inside. She pinches one between her fingers and holds it up to the light, memorizing the three letter text imprint. If she had a smart phone she would search the name of it on the spot. Instead, she walks out holding one of the bottles and says to Harry, "What's this?"

The smile flickers from his face. "Oh," he says, like he's getting ready to explain, but then he shakes his head. "Hey, what were you doing in the cabinet?"

"Well, we're supposed to live together in like a week, aren't we?" she says, crossing the room and tossing the pill bottle at him. He catches it, his eyebrows furrowed, and she goes on, "Were you going to tell me what these were for?"

"Calm down," he says, in a measured voice. "They're just … I've been really stressed lately. With the Goblin running around, and my dad's been acting really strange, and I just …"

MJ stands her ground. "So you're taking _meds?_"

"They're prescribed," Harry says indignantly. "It's not like I'm huffing glue."

"We've all had to deal with the Goblin," she says. "We've all had to deal with—"

She stops herself before she mentions her own father, surprised at how easily the wine almost loosened her tongue. "Three different _kinds_ of pills?" she says instead. "That seems like a lot."

"It's perfectly normal," he says. He isn't even angry. She wants him to be, because she's suddenly afraid that the pills are the very reason that he isn't.

She sits next to him, on the edge of the couch. "Then why didn't you tell me?" she asks.

He stares down at the pill bottle. "I meant to," he says. "It just never came up."

She isn't sure whether to believe him or not. She waits for him to look up at her, thinking that she might be able to tell if he's lying if he looks into her eyes, but he doesn't. He seems ashamed, and suddenly she feels ashamed. He has been so happy lately, so carefree and like his old self. Who is she to decide he doesn't deserve that?

Still, when they turn in that night, his arm draped around her as they lay tangled in the middle of his enormous bed, she feels restless and tense, thinking of those pill bottles in their neat little row. It seems like more than an oversight. It seems like that's the kind of thing he should have told her, maybe even before it happened.

From here she can see the bare window, the lights of the city creeping in. She thinks of those lace curtains and closes her eyes, drifting into an uneasy sleep.

* * *

The apartment she is supposed to start renting with Harry has another buyer, who beats them to the punch. Harry is furious and MJ pretends to be. Secretly she is glad for a few more weeks to herself.

She throws herself back into auditioning and promotional work. In her six weeks off she missed an entire round of shiny-faced new girls who came from small towns hoping to make it big and already gave up; she sees the familiar faces of other girls like her who don't know when to quit, and bids them weary hellos as they pretend to be happy about her recovery.

Still, some days there is nothing for her to do, no auditions for her to make or extra shifts for her to pick up. She spends those days in the apartments. It's a beautiful summer, a tempting seventy-five degrees most days, without the usual suffocating humidity that accompanies it, but nobody goes outside anymore for longer than they can help it. So Gwen is counting on MJ to be indoors one day when she calls in a panic because she left some important OsCorp-related documents in her room.

"Don't worry about it, I'll get them to you in an hour," MJ says. "Where should I be looking?"

Gwen directs her to a bookshelf in her room, telling her that the documents are flagged with bright green post-its, so she should be able to spot it. Then she hangs up because she is in the middle of a meeting, leaving MJ to her own devices. When the documents aren't on the shelf like Gwen said they would be, MJ pokes around the closet, and sure enough she sees the telltale post-its sticking out of some papers on the top shelf.

She grabs a chair from the kitchen to hoist herself up and grab them. She's rooting around, trying to make sure she has grabbed the entire stack of them, when her hand grazes something velvety and small in the back corner of the shelf.

She pulls it out. She doesn't know what she is expecting it to be, but when a jewelry box emerges she feels her breath catch in her throat.

She shouldn't open it. First off, because it's probably wrong of her to be snooping, and second off, because she already knows what is inside. She knew this would happen sooner or later. She just was hoping for later.

Still, she opens it, because nobody is home and nobody will ever know. It is a simple ring. Classic and timeless, a lot like Gwen. It gleams as it catches the light from the ceiling. MJ raises a hand to touch it, maybe to pull it out, but then something stops her and she stands on the chair with her arm in mid-motion, feeling petrified.

So this is it. She can't pretend this away anymore. The ring is meant for Gwen, but when MJ thinks about it, it will change everything so much more for her than it will for her friend. Gwen has always had Peter; a ring doesn't change that. But this ring upheaves MJ's world, by concreting the rest of the plans: Peter and Gwen, Mary Jane and Harry. This is the way that the story ends.

She slams the box closed. She is being ridiculous. She shoves it back into the closet where she found it and hops down from the chair, neatly stacking the documents, trying to ignore the flush in her cheeks and her sudden desire to cry.

She should be happy. Gwen is her best friend, and here she is, about to be engaged. She should be _happy_.

Gwen brings home pizza for dinner and the three of them all sit around the table to eat. MJ doesn't say much, absorbed in chewing, glancing between Gwen and Peter and cryptically thinking that this is probably the last time that this will ever happen—that the three of them will eat dinner like this. Now that she is looking at her friends, really watching them, she sees the signs she has been trying desperately to ignore. She sees them moving fast, moving to a place where she can't reach them, to a place she doesn't understand, and she knows just by the way that Peter looks at Gwen that that ring isn't going to be up in the closet for very long.

* * *

Peter proposes the next week.

In truth, MJ thinks he's going to do it a few days before that, when he inexplicably invites Gwen out to a fancy restaurant and wears his nicest suit (his _only_ suit, she reminds herself), and she practically holds her breath the entire night in anticipation of Gwen coming home with the news, but nothing happens. She figures Peter must have mucked something up, but life goes on as usual for two more days.

When Gwen bursts into MJ's room with the ring on her finger it still manages to take her by surprise. Mostly because it is before dawn, at some unholy hour of the morning long before MJ is accustomed to waking. Gwen's smile is manic, or maybe it's just that MJ hasn't seen her really smile in weeks, and she is holding her hand out and shaking it for MJ to look.

"Oh my god," says MJ.

It comes out flat. Oh, for Christ's sake, she's supposed to be an actress. She can do better than this. She jumps up from her bed, as if it is only just hitting her, as if she is too overwhelmed to respond properly. She grabs Gwen's skinny shoulders and squeezes her into a hug so she won't be able to see MJ's face. "Oh my _god_, Gwen!"

"I know," says Gwen, almost sing-songing in disbelief. "I know, I _know_."

"When did he—how did he—details!" MJ says, willing her voice to squeal and not break. She pokes her head out the door. "Is he here?"

"No, no, he went to grab some cake and wine from that twenty-four hour store to celebrate."

"At—" MJ checks her phone. "Five in the morning?"

"Yeah, god, I can't even, I'm so sorry, I know it's early, but I had to tell someone."

Gwen's eyes are bright even in the darkness of the room, dancing with a kind of happiness that makes MJ's heart hurt. There is something unbelievably beautiful about being this important to anybody, important enough that Gwen told her before she told her own mother. But there is a bitter irony in this moment, too. It feels a little bit like they've been on a boat that's been tilting and tilting and MJ is the one about to be tossed over the ledge.

Gwen settles down on MJ's bed, sitting cross-legged and leaning forward in excitement. She looks like she did when they were twenty, when they'd spend late nights talking in MJ's dorm and the city was a breathing, living thing beneath them, full of promise and possibility. It makes MJ's throat tight with anxiety to think of how far they are from those times now, how fast they have hurtled in a completely different direction.

"You'll be my maid of honor, right?"

MJ doesn't know why it surprises her to hear Gwen ask this.

"Of course," she says, after a beat. It only makes sense. She is Gwen's best friend, and Gwen doesn't have any sisters. But somehow out of everything this feels like the most personal blow.

"It won't be anything crazy. Just family. You know?" Gwen's expression is dreamy at the thought of it. "Like, probably at a courthouse or something, I don't want to spend a lot of money."

MJ picks at a toenail and reminds herself to stop and look Gwen in the eye. "Saving up for the honeymoon?"

Gwen shakes her head. "We don't really want to leave New York."

This doesn't make any sense to MJ. It's not as if Gwen hasn't accumulated a thousand and one vacation and sick days since she is the most reliable person on the planet. And as for Peter, there is nothing but his stupid camera job keeping him here, and he sets his own hours. Anyone in their right mind would get the hell out of the city right now, even if it meant honeymooning in a tent.

But MJ doesn't bring any of this up. In truth she really just wants Gwen and that tasteful little ring to get out of her room so she can throw her head back onto her pillow and scream.

Gwen seems momentarily absorbed in some thought, which gives MJ enough time to recover. "We'll find you guys some way to celebrate, I'm sure," she says, imagining a few fun things Harry could help her plan out for them, and how fun it would be to do that with him—_Harry_, the boy she loves, the boy she's moving in with, the boy she might very well be engaged to within the year. _Harry_.

When Gwen leaves her room a few minutes later, they've discussed dress options and photography and setting a date, but it only occurs to MJ once the door is shut that Gwen never explained why this had happened in the hours before dawn. She wants to ask, but it is out of a morbid curiosity, like she wants to rub salt on the wound. She is sure there is some goofy story behind it, something dorky and unexpected and uniquely Peter and Gwen.

It's better off this way. She doesn't want to know.

She hugs her pillow to her chest and sits there on her bed, looking at the contents of her little room. Her clothes are still strewn haphazardly all over what little floor space she has. The mismatched hangers are all crooked and hanging from different angles because she is constantly rooting through them. There are wires poking out from her phone charger and five dollar headphones and the little laptop she bought in Chinatown.

It is a disaster, but it is her disaster. She is suddenly nostalgic for this room before she even leaves it. It is stiflingly small, windowless and cramped, but there is some security here in knowing that she is surrounded by these four little walls where nobody can see her. After she spends her time getting scrutinized by casting agents, stared at by creepy men in nightclubs, and ducking every time an ominous shadow falls over the sky, she finds some beauty in disappearing.

The walls in the apartment she will get with Harry are expansive and airy and grand. She should be grateful. She should be ecstatic. But all she can think about is how impossible it will be to hide. Not just from the rest of the world—but from this pulsing, irresistible thought in the back of her head, _what if_, _what if_, _what if_.

She sets the pillow back down and leans up against her wall, giving the room and its contents another sweeping look. She could pack all of this up in an hour and be gone forever. For all the memories of her time here, it is a startling realization, to know how fast she could make it seem as if she had never been here at all.

* * *

So you know how I keep complaining about my cafe job? Never. Again. Because even though the customers are snobby and rich and mean, and two out of three of my managers are strung out ex-meth addicts, and literally every single shift makes me feel a little more dead inside while my useless college degree shrivels in its frame ... I've been invited into The Railroad.

What is The Railroad? Well. It is this magical perfect place where all my co-workers at their different food stations steal food from the store and sneak it to each other. So now it doesn't matter what day it is-if someone in The Railroad is on deli, I get free soup. If they're in sandwiches? Blammo. Swiss and turkey. If they're on desserts ...

I've gained five pounds. Glurp derp (woops).


	7. Chapter 7

**Perpendicular**

On a late night in August MJ starts to pack up her tiny room. She starts with just the intention of organizing everything, but then she finds some old broken down boxes in the closet and starts putting away old mementos, and then her winter clothes, and then her notebooks and DVDs, until suddenly she is standing in a room with nothing but a bare mattress and boxes.

MJ hasn't mentioned moving out to Peter and Gwen. She figures it's a given, now that they're engaged. She doesn't worry too much about the rent that they won't be getting from her since Gwen just got promoted, and they had been doing just fine financially before MJ moved in anyway.

She isn't really leaving when she heads out that morning, at least not for good. But when she comes back Gwen springs up from the couch, looking as though she has been waiting for MJ to come home for a long time.

"Hey," she says, her eyes wide and genuine. "You don't have to move out. Nothing has to change."

MJ stands in the doorway and feels her eyes tearing up. Gwen is the closest thing to a sister she has ever had, and she and Peter are the closest thing to a family. She doesn't know where on earth she would be without them, has no idea what she will do without them now, but every second she spends with them feels more traitorous than the last.

"You're getting married, Gwen," MJ says through the lump forming in her throat. She smiles as believably as she can and says, "I won't go too far. It'll be just like before, except maybe a subway ride away."

They both know that isn't true. The days of MJ and Gwen and Peter are over. This is the beginning of a new chapter, and they're ripping MJ out of the book.

It is so tempting to take Gwen up on her offer. To unpack the bags and hang up her clothes and sleep in her own tiny bed that she never has to share with anybody. But Peter and Gwen are moving forward, and so is she. She can have this kind of happiness with Harry. She just has to let herself believe in it long enough to let it happen.

"And you'll be alright?" Gwen asks. "You've got a place lined up and everything, and you'll come back if anything ever changes."

This time when MJ smiles she means it. "You don't have to worry about me," she says. "You and Peter deserve some time alone, and this was a long time coming, moving in with Harry. The timing is perfect."

* * *

And for a little while, at least, it is close to perfect. It is hard to say anything is wholly perfect when the Green Goblin and Spiderman are facing off two or three times a week, always in very public and open spaces with absolutely no warning, but for a few weeks MJ and Harry live in a happy and well-protected bubble. She has a steady rehearsal schedule for a show she is actually getting paid for, so they fall into a routine: they eat breakfast together, and kiss each other good-bye, Harry in his work suit and MJ in her dancewear with her character shoes tucked in her backpack. They text each other during the day, building up sweet little anticipations to see each other, and then at the end of the day they both come home mutually exhausted and grateful to see each other. One of them orders take-out because neither of them can cook, and then they find all sorts of places in the huge apartment to undress each other while they're waiting for the delivery guy. They eat and talk about their days, with her head perched on his chest so she can hear the rumble of his voice against her ear.

Most importantly, though, she doesn't see much of Peter and Gwen.

It is mostly because she is busy. They all are. And the new apartment is at least twenty minutes away from Peter and Gwen, no matter what kind of transportation they use. Still, MJ knows she could make time for Gwen if she wanted to. But she doesn't.

It makes everything easier, or at the very least makes it uncomplicated. Everything is straightforward and planned. She wakes up to Harry, falls asleep next to Harry, holds Harry's hand and tells Harry she loves him, and in this vacuum that they're inhabiting, where there is nobody to interrupt or distract them, she lets herself enjoy their lives together. She even starts to imagine a future with him: a big church wedding in the city, moving out to the suburbs, having children, vacationing in the Hamptons every summer on the Fourth of July. Maybe she doesn't need to be famous. Maybe those dreams were vain and shortsighted. Maybe all she needs is right here, strong and secure and already hers.

They haven't seen Gwen and Peter for two weeks when Harry says casually, "Hey, I ran into Peter today."

MJ swallows her sip of water carefully, wishing she weren't so pale because she can feel her cheeks heating up at the mere mention of him. "Oh, yeah?"

"We haven't all hung out in ages. We were thinking we should all hang out this weekend. Pizza and beer, the works."

Harry is smiling. He thinks she will be happy to hear this, maybe even grateful that he took the initiative, because in the past she and Gwen have always been responsible for arranging all their plans. It takes her a moment to smile back.

"That sounds great. You're right. I haven't seen Gwen in weeks."

She doesn't know why it's important to emphasize that she only misses Gwen, but Harry doesn't seem to notice. That weekend they meet up in a pizza place in Brooklyn that a mutual friend of theirs at OsCorp was raving about. It's cramped and it takes twenty minutes for them to finally grab a table out from under a group of hipsters, but MJ and Harry are settled in a spot by the time Gwen and Peter arrive, predictably late.

Gwen swoops in and hugs MJ right away. MJ is a little stunned by the gesture, since Gwen is usually the less touchy-feely of the two of them, and that's how she knows it really has been a long time since they've seen each other, possibly more time than MJ can dismiss with a wave of her hand.

"I'm so sorry we've been so busy," says Gwen.

Her eyes have dark circles under them. For someone so newly engaged she couldn't possibly look more tired.

"We've been busy, too," says MJ, suddenly wishing the boys weren't here so she could ask Gwen what's been going on.

Peter slides in next to Harry, and they laugh about something MJ doesn't catch. MJ looks up and catches Peter's eye, and can't help the way her heart starts to thrum at the sight of him. He looks tired, too—his eyes bleary with sleeplessness, his expression a little strung out. But it does nothing to detract from the strange and embarrassing magnitude she feels staring at the curves of his face. She tears her eyes away.

"Hey, Mary Jane," says Peter.

He is so casual that she finds her stomach sinking with disappointment. Of course he has not missed her at all. She has no idea why she ever thought he might.

The dinner is uneventful, and Harry doesn't seem to notice at all that both Peter and Gwen are fraying at their seams. She wonders out loud about it on the taxi ride home, after they've dropped their friends off. She asks Harry if he thinks it has anything to do with the Goblin, or Peter's job, or anything going on at OsCorp.

"Every department at OsCorp is focusing on the Goblin now," Harry says, a little quietly, like he doesn't want the cab driver to hear.

"What do you mean?" asks MJ. "You haven't mentioned anything about that."

He shrugs. "I suggested it early on, remember? It just took everyone else a bit longer to understand that we can't just depend on one guy in a spandex suit to solve all our problems for us."

By the edge in his voice she can tell that by "everyone else" he means his father. Harry doesn't talk about Norman often, not after that first fight that they had outside of the bar the night that she met him, and MJ doesn't really mind it. She doesn't particularly care for Norman, and this way she doesn't have to offer up any information about her own father, who Harry has obviously never met. Every now and then, though, the inexplicable bitterness between the two of them is impossible to ignore.

"Well?" asks MJ. "What's OsCorp thinking of doing?"

"I can't really say," says Harry.

"Oh."

"I mean, not because I can't tell you or anything. It's just—it's probably safer for you not to know," he says, trying to reassure her.

She gnaws at her lower lip, considering this. She doubts that OsCorp can really do anything about the Goblin because it's been months since he first showed up, and wouldn't they have done something by now? And if they could have fixed this a long time ago, how on earth could they justify letting so many people suffer in the meantime? So she lets the conversation fizzle out, because she doesn't want to get her hopes up, or frustrate Harry by talking about it any further. He has been in such a good mood lately that there isn't any point in wrecking it.

"Peter's had some ideas, actually."

She isn't expecting Harry to keep talking on the subject. When she looks up, he is staring out the window, his face expressionless.

"Parker?" she asks.

"Yeah. Some blueprints, ideas for things that OsCorp has the resources for." Harry purses his lips. "He's really smart."

"Yeah," says MJ, her voice low. "I know."

"My father has really taken a liking to some of his ideas. He told me he has offered Peter a position at OsCorp three different times, but he won't take it."

Harry's voice is by all accounts neutral, but there is something contained in it, something that makes her uneasy. She glances down at his lap and sees that his fingers are tight against his palms. She doesn't know what he wants her to say, but she has the distinct impression that whatever she says next is important, like he is counting on her for something. Maybe to say that Peter is stupid for not taking it, or to reassure Harry somehow that his father probably thinks that he is plenty smarter than Peter. But she doubts her ability to do either of those things without sounding forced and trivial.

Instead she says, "I think Gwen is really upset. Because Peter is following the Goblin and Spiderman everywhere."

Harry's shoulders loosen just the slightest bit. "I would be too, if I were her." He exhales loudly, somewhere between a sigh and a breath of exasperation. "I mean, Pete's a great guy and everything, but sometimes I wonder what's going on in that head of his. He's got this great job offer, a chance for total financial security, and he all but throws it back in OsCorp's face. What's that about?" He looks genuinely perplexed by this, and maybe a little offended. "He's not going to hold on to a girl like Gwen long with an attitude like that."

MJ doesn't know why this grates on her, when he says this. She has to resist the urge to snap and say something equally degrading about Harry's own character. She can't decide if it's because she wants to defend Peter's oddities, or if it's because she hates the idea that Gwen is someone who requires a lot of effort to win over and hold on to, because in some backwards way it feels like Harry has implied that MJ isn't worth all that same trouble. In any case, she is relieved when the cab pulls up to their building, eager to slip into the shower and have some time to herself.

"Don't you think?"

He's waiting for her to agree with him. She steps out of the cab and says, with some difficulty, "Gwen loves Peter just the way he is."

"I guess," Harry concedes. "Still. That whole photography thing seems kind of pointless, if you ask me."

She follows him wordlessly up to the apartment, her arms crossed against her chest, shielding herself from some imaginary wind. She catches her own reflection in the glossy elevator walls and for a brief second thinks that it is someone else—someone sophisticated and older. She stares again, self-conscious, not wanting Harry to catch her looking. She briefly looks for some trace of the girl she considers herself to be: somebody brave, somebody spontaneous and unpredictable and carefree, somebody who cuts her own bangs and wears beat-up sneakers with her dresses and stays up all night rehearsing monologues in the bathroom.

The elevator doors open with a ding. Harry waits so she can leave first, and then unlocks the door for her, ever the gentleman. She watches him as he stretches out on the couch and looks up at her expectantly. She crosses the room to him, and already sees the intent in his eyes, already sees how the rest of the night will play out.

As he fiddles with the zipper on the back of her dress she wills herself not to wonder. The stubble of his cheek grazes her neck, warm and familiar, and his hands trace the bare skin of her back. She lets herself disappear into this moment, and give herself to him, because otherwise she will say something she regrets and start a fight, become the girl she is trying so hard for his sake not to be.

Still, she can't help the shadowy doubt in her mind, one that casts a gloom over the night and leaves her feeling more insecure and out of place than ever: if Harry thinks that Peter and his photography are stupid, then what on earth does he think of her?

* * *

MJ isn't sure what makes her do it, but she throws herself back into auditioning with a vengeance.

She feels like she needs to justify staying in this city when everyone else is leaving. She feels like she has to get out there and make it happen _now_, before things with Harry get in the way—or better yet, her career has to take off so completely that Harry can't talk her into marriage and kids too soon the way he has talked her into moving in together.

In a sense she is more secure in her career than ever. The problem is, in the past few months, she has hit a plateau. She has a consistent job working for one company that puts on several shows a year, and pays enough to cover half the rent. She has another gig doing PR work on the side for a well-connected theater, where she frequently hears about opportunities she would otherwise miss. She is finally nearing the point where she has enough credits to join the union, but she is not quite there yet, just needs that extra push of a few more productions under her belt.

But she throws herself back into it as if she has everything to lose, because she feels like she just might. She needs the distraction. She needs this part of her old self to cling to. She remembers how it felt when she first finished school, how determined and passionate and unstoppable she was, how she told everyone if she didn't make it as an actress she would _die_—where is that girl now? The one who held her head high above the fray at auditions, who walked around with the bravado of someone who runs this city, who told strangers at bars she was going to be famous one day and they could say that they knew her when?

It's not as if she has been slacking. But it scares her how close she has come to just letting this dream slip out from under her fingers, and it scares her how she wants to blame Harry for it when she knows there is nobody to blame but herself.

It is stressful and tiring, scheduling herself like this, and jumping at everything that has even the slightest potential to lead somewhere. She needs to lose about seven pounds of weight she gained in the past year but finds that it slides off easily, running on nerves and cheap coffee as she dashes between studios. When they all meet up as a group now, Harry is the only one who looks as if he has had a decent night's sleep in the last month, which she attributes to his medication and doesn't let herself worry about, because god knows she has enough on her mind.

She finds herself wishing she had taken more notice of Harry, though, when she comes home late one night to find Harry flung out and sleeping on the couch.

She smirks. He must have been waiting for her, hoping he would get lucky; he saw the skimpy ensemble she left in a few hours ago and made a few choice comments about things he was planning to do with it when she got home.

"Harry," she says quietly.

If she were a better girlfriend she'd surprise him with a kiss or a more suggestive gesture, but she's tired and she figures he must be too, if he is conked out at nine thirty. He doesn't stir, so she walks forward and touches his hand.

It's ice cold.

"Harry?" she says, deliberately this time, and loudly.

It feels like there is a rushing wind in her ears. The silence of the room is so overwhelming, so excruciating that she can't breathe.

"Harry," she says, but the word comes out like a gasp. She shakes him again, hard, but feels a grim certainty in her bones that it doesn't matter how hard she shakes him. She reels back, taking a better look at him, still muttering his name over and over.

He looks ordinary. He looks perfectly ordinary, like he could be sleeping. She feels her hands clamp over her mouth, feels them shaking uncontrollably, her wrists throbbing with shock and terror.

She doesn't know how many seconds pass while she stands there, dumbstruck, gaping at him. "_Harry!_" she screams, because it is the last resort she can think of, the last shred of hope that maybe he will wake up, maybe he is only dreaming, and the sound of the fear in her voice will finally revive him.

Nothing. She reels back, gasping, reaching for her phone. She is about to call for an ambulance when it occurs to her that Harry once told her that his father was furious the time he had a minor heart attack and his waitstaff called 911, that it attracted too much attention and ended up becoming a media circus.

Gwen is on speed dial. She knows it's stupid but she can't think of what else to do.

"Hello?"

MJ opens her mouth and nothing comes out at first but a rush of air. She sucks in a breath, because she is better than this, she is stronger than this, and this is not the time to break down, not when Harry needs her.

"It's Harry," she manages. "He won't wake up."

There's a pause on the other end. It's the tiniest of pauses, but MJ almost screams in frustration, waiting for Gwen to answer. "Is he breathing?"

"I don't know," she says, her voice sounding small and far away.

"You have to check."

She steps forward. She has done this before, plenty of times, when she came home to her father passed out drunk in the living room. Back then, though, she didn't care all that much whether he was alive or dead. Checking was only a formality, and she didn't worry all that much if she didn't hear anything right away.

It feels like ages before she feels the faint hot breath against the back of her hand.

By the time she presses the phone back to her ear she hears a jumble of voices, Peter and Gwen talking to each other and addressing her at the same time.

"Mary Jane."

Peter has evidently taken over the line. MJ stands up, roused by the edge and the careful calm in his voice.

"Harry left me an emergency number. It's in my phone, and Gwen is grabbing it now. She is going to call it, and there should be a response within five minutes. Are you in your apartment?"

MJ nods. "Yes," she says, too astounded to say anything else.

"Sit tight. Stay on the phone."

"Okay."

She stands there, every muscle in her body rigid and quivering, staring at the door. Peter doesn't say anything, and MJ isn't sure if she should, either. "Is Gwen calling?"

"She just hung up," says Peter patiently.

Silence again. Nobody is talking and she can't bear it. "I don't understand," she says, willing her voice to remain firm. "He gave you an emergency number. Why wouldn't he give it to me?"

"I'm sure he didn't want to worry you," says Peter.

MJ sucks in a breath. Her eyes and nose are streaming with tears, but she is remarkably composed. "He shouldn't have—he shouldn't have done that. He should have told _me_," says MJ, because she hates this implication that she is too weak to handle a crisis. Harry has _no idea_ what she has been through, no _clue_ what kind of things she has seen.

Because she never told him. Because for all their closeness she has never breathed a word about her past.

"I know," says Peter, with a quiet appreciation.

There's a harsh knock at the door. MJ springs forward and opens it. She stands back, ready to explain how she found him, ready to tell them about his medications or the last time she saw him or if he acted at all strangely that day, but nobody even glances over at her as they extend the stretcher and wheel Harry out so quickly and quietly that she feels like she could have missed them if she blinked.

"Mary Jane?"

She is still standing there in her tights, in her ridiculously short skirt and gauzy sweater, with the phone next to her face. She wants to hear the sound of Peter's voice again, steady and assured. She wants the strength of him, the smell of him, the familiar parts of him that she has come to know all these years and has spent this month trying so hard to forget. It all comes rushing back now with an unstoppable force, and her sudden longing for him is almost crushing in its intensity.

"Mary Jane," says Peter again, a hint of worry in his voice.

"I'm here," she says.

It is at once and cold and clear, this new understanding of herself. She has forsaken Harry so unforgivably that she brought this upon both of them. It is her fault that they are wheeling him out, her fault that he is on the medications. If she had just tried harder, if she had paid him more attention.

She let this happen. She wanted what she couldn't have and lost sight of what she already did.

"We're coming over. Just hold on."

* * *

MJ is right. Harry mixed up the prescriptions. He is vague about how this happened, saying he must have been distracted, but in any case it is the cause of his losing consciousness. He is apologetic and embarrassed, and seems to think that it will all blow over easily after that, but MJ dwells on it anyway. She checks the medicine cabinet, unsure of what she can even do to monitor him, feeling at the same time frightened and resentful that he has put her in this position.

She spent ten years making sure her father hadn't killed himself with booze. She spent ten years planning her escape from him, and every year after that in a desperate, unhappy race with herself to find the security and love that her own home had always lacked.

Harry was supposed to be the antithesis of her father. He was supposed to good, and clean, and safe.

She knows it is unfair to hold him to these standards. She knows that it was only one mistake. But she can't help the familiar discomfort creeping in, and the fear that chases it, nipping at the edges of their every stilted interaction in the days that follow.

MJ spends more time back at the old apartment now. Her rehearsals are over now that the show has started and her days are free, and the new apartment with Harry is too large to spend the day alone. Peter doesn't say anything the first time she uses her old key to let herself in. He sits on the couch with his laptop with the same companionable quiet they had back when she was actually living with them. Her old room is untouched; they haven't even bothered to use the space yet. For some reason this relieves her.

The fourth day she lets herself in, Peter looks like he is concentrating on something.

"Harry said you were drawing out weapons," says MJ. "For the Goblin."

Peter blinks up at her, rattled out of his work. "Yeah. I was."

MJ stares down at his hand, careful tracing something on paper. "Did you change your mind?"

"No," says Peter. "I'm working on something else. The first idea—it was too dangerous."

"But … you think it might have worked."

Peter looks her in the eye. She isn't prepared for the intensity of his gaze. "It would have. But innocent people's lives are too high of a price to pay."

"Innocent people are dying anyway," says MJ, carefully.

Peter grunts softly. It almost sounds like a laugh. "That's what Harry said."

MJ stares down at her shoes, feeling an unfamiliar brand of shame.

"I bet you think I should have taken that job, too."

She wants to look him in the eye with the same conviction that he has, but when she looks back up, he's staring out the window, with a bitter, defensive furrow of his brow. She waits for him to turn his head, but he doesn't. She straightens herself up on the couch and turns her own eyes away, staring at the wall, because it suddenly seems important that she doesn't wait for him for anything.

"You'd be surprised by what I think, Parker."


	8. Chapter 8

**Perpendicular**

That year there isn't much of an autumn. There is a cool and cautionary breeze for the first few days of October, followed by an unrelenting, miserable cold, and more snow than MJ has ever seen. For weeks it seems like they don't even see the city streets. As soon as the last of the nasty slush has melted, another coat of it replaces it. MJ dreads going outside, or even looking out the window. There is nothing nice to see.

The Goblin is still running amok, attacking at random. One day it's the F train, the next day it's the Lincoln tunnel, and a week after that it's Central Park. Now it has become worldwide news, and it is more than just New York's police force trying to stop him—the FBI is involved, too. Nobody knows what he wants, really, or at least nobody seems to have a definitive answer, but one thing MJ understands is that he really, _really_ must hate Spiderman.

Maybe she would understand more about his motives or the patterns of his attacks, but MJ just ducks her head down and ignores the news whenever she can. For someone who is so engaged in auditioning and the theater scene, for someone who has a best friend and a live-in boyfriend and a whole city full of people she has met over the past twenty-six years, she feels oddly separate from it all, almost out of touch with reality. She doesn't answer many phone calls or texts. She walks around with her earbuds on and forgets to turn on her music. She doesn't even bother to look up at the sky the way everyone else seems to every five seconds—let them be the ones to watch, let them be the ones to see him first. If he's coming for her, MJ doesn't really want to know.

She worries about Harry. He doesn't seem to notice. The further she withdraws the more determined he seems to act as if everything is normal, and she is happy to please him, pretending right along even though their conversations are stilted and even the lovemaking seems somehow rehearsed, as if they are convincing themselves of a feeling and a time that isn't there.

Deep down she knows that it isn't anything to do with Harry, or her, or their relationship. It's the circumstances. The times are trying and terrifying and it's a miracle that they've managed to stay happy together this long, considering everything is happening. It's the Goblin to blame.

Isn't it?

Their new apartment has a bathtub. MJ has never lived in a place with a bathtub that she can actually use, and she finds herself taking long soaks in it when Harry isn't home, and having altogether too much time to think. She cranks up the hot water and tries to steam the doubts and fears out through the pores of her skin, and she'll lay there for a long time, until the water is cold and the sun starts to sink in the window and nothing seems any clearer than it did the hour before.

She spends a lot of time near the old apartment. Not necessarily going inside. She feels those unwelcome thoughts about Peter creeping in and feels badly about going inside when Gwen isn't home, as if it is breaking some cardinal rule, so instead she lingers in coffee shops nearby, or walks past the street as often as she can. She tells herself it's because she misses the neighborhood, but she cranes her head every time she sees messy brown hair and knows that maybe that isn't strictly the _only_ reason.

In November she actually does run into Peter. Well, he runs into her. She is sitting on a bench and sipping a coffee, trying to decide between two auditions in the next few hours that are happening on opposite sides of the city, when she feels someone sit uncomfortably close to her.

She glances over out of the corner of her eye, sure it's some creepy homeless guy, and sees Peter smirking at her.

"You jerk," she mutters.

The truth is she feels an embarrassing warmth flooding through her chest and all the way to her fingertips. Everything is instantaneously electrified and on edge. She ducks her head down into the coffee cup, tucking her chin further into the folds her scarf.

"What are you doing out here?"

She shrugs. She is dying to talk his ear off, to catch up with him and demand to know everything he is doing, or even just make him sit here with her in that nice companionable quiet they used to have, but she is afraid that if she lets herself wish for any of these things she will only drive him away.

"It's like forty degrees. And you're just sitting on a bench for fun?"

"I don't mind the cold," she says.

"You should stay inside."

She glances up at Peter. He looks exhausted, like he always does. There's a faint ring of a bruise around his cheek but she knows better than to ask by now.

Then he meets her eye and she has to look away. They're sitting too close. She's afraid he'll take one look at her and know the truth. She wrings one of her hands out on her jeans, and clutches the coffee cup hard with the other one, wishing she could look at him freely, without inhibition, without seeing Gwen in her mind's eye and feeling rotten to the core.

She knows he's talking about the Goblin, not the cold.

"I don't really care what happens to me," says MJ, and maybe it's true. She's sick of feeling afraid. She's sick of watching Harry, of subtly checking the labels on all of his prescriptions and checking to make sure he's alive in the middle of the night. She's sick of the empty hopes and ambitions that seem to always lead her right back where she started.

She's sick of Peter. Sick of thinking about him. Sick of this moment, when he is sitting beside her and actually talking to her for the first time in weeks, because she knows that after he leaves she'll be replaying the conversation for hours in her mind on an endless loop, imagining all the things she could have and should have said instead.

"That's a stupid thing to say," says Peter. "And selfish."

She just shrugs again. "You can't really talk, can you," she says, because he knows full well how many times Gwen has begged him to stop following the Goblin's antics.

Peter huffs. His breath fogs up the air in front of them. "That's different."

"Why, because you're a boy? Because you have a fancy camera?" MJ shakes her head.

"Because I know what I'm doing," Peter retorts.

MJ sweeps a glance over to the mark on his face. "Clearly."

He doesn't answer, and they both look out toward the street.

She should say something to him, say anything, but she feels this hopelessness starting to settle in her bones. It doesn't matter what she says or does. Things are the way that they are. She can't change the way that Peter feels about her, or the way that she feels about him, and even if she could it wouldn't be right to try.

"I'm so tired of all this," she says. She didn't really mean to say it out loud, but there it is. Just words to fill up the silence. She really isn't expecting Peter to do anything but grunt in agreement, but instead he cocks his head over to her, his eyes a little disbelieving.

"Aren't you supposed to be the spitfire?" he says.

MJ frowns at this characterization. "You're just saying that because I'm a redhead."

"No, I'm saying that because you're obnoxious, and loud, and never know when to quit." The words aren't very nice, but his tone is. He says it the way he might give a pep talk to a whiny little sister. "Or at least, that's how you used to be."

She shrugs again. Noncommittal, detached. It's safer to hold him at a distance, and ignore the feelings that brim like a dark, looming wave.

"I just feel like I want to go home," she says. "But this is the only home I know. I guess—I just want it to be the way that it used to be." She hunches her shoulders against a particularly cold gust of wind. "I don't know what I want anymore. Maybe I just don't want any of it."

She is already angry with him for not being able to comfort her, already waiting for him to say the wrong thing, or say nothing at all. It feels like she is building a steel cage around herself. She hates that he hurts her without doing anything at all.

"That's why I just don't care anymore," she adds, with a vague gesture, because she wants the conversation to have a definitive end.

His voice is surprisingly steady, and louder than she expected. "You don't mean that. You're the girl who blows up at casting directors, who tamed _Harry Osborn_, who ran back and faced the Goblin to get some stranger out of her car. You can't just say—"

She balks. "How do you know about that?"

Peter pauses for a moment, and then his eyes drop to the ground. "Because—Gwen told me," he says, as if this is obvious.

She looks at him carefully, but it's not much use when he won't look back. "I didn't tell Gwen."

"Then—Spiderman must have," Peter mumbles. "Maybe he told me."

She stares at him incredulously, jarred by this new piece of information. "He knows who I am?"

"Yeah," Peter mumbles uncomfortably. "I mean, yeah. You were living in an apartment with me for years, you came up."

MJ leans forward on the bench, clutching the now empty coffee cup, feeling a churn of mismatched emotions reeling in her stomach. Spiderman _knows who she is_. The thought is thrilling, in a girly, secretive kind of way. She is reminded briefly of the night she turned seventeen and snuck into a bar to see one of her favorite bands play, when she walked up to the stage and the lead singer winked at her. She feels that same inexplicable yet undeniable shot of excitement, knowing someone she admires has _noticed_ her, that someone important might think for a second that she is important, too.

On the other hand, Peter's description of their relationship, so perfunctory and indifferent, is more than a little disappointing. He won't even call her his roommate; she has only gotten as far as "living in an apartment with me."

Not for the first time she sneaks a glance at Peter and wonders what on earth she even sees in him. She tries to lay the bare bones of it down, tries to strip him plain, trait by trait and feature by feature. By all accounts he is fairly ordinary. Lanky frame, messy hair, unconscious social tics and all. She can't think of one reason to explain the shift, to explain what could possibly make her suddenly want him this much.

Is it because Gwen is happy with him? This thought has occurred to her. She has always been a little bit jealous of Gwen, in her own guarded way. She could never admit this to herself in the early years of their friendship, at least not in any emotionally mature fashion, but now it feels like a truth she has to face: is Peter just one more thing that Gwen has that she doesn't?

She almost wants to close her eyes, just for a moment, and imagine a Peter without Gwen. But even she isn't selfish enough to do that.

"I should leave New York," she says suddenly. "For Los Angeles. Or Chicago."

To her surprise, Peter gives a solemn nod. "It's probably safer."

It feels a little bit like he has sucker-punched her. She wasn't expecting him to agree so easily. Of course, if she left, he wouldn't miss her at all. He probably wouldn't even notice. And she could comfort herself by saying that at the very least, Harry would miss her, or even try to move with her, but these days he seems so unlike himself that she can't even be sure of that.

"Yeah. It probably is."

She gets up abruptly, feeling her eyes sting with the cold. She beelines for a trashcan, trying to look purposeful and in a hurry so she can leave Peter in the dust.

Peter is surprisingly fast, though, and at her side in an instant. "You think you'd actually go, then?"

She pauses, feeling her shoulders quake in the effort not to spit something mean out, just to watch that baffled look on his face turn to shock and hurt.

"Yeah," she says tersely. "Not that you care."

"God, have you always been this impossible?" Peter demands. "I'm saying you should move _because_ I care."

It's the angriest MJ has felt in months, and there's a strange relief to it. For weeks she has been tiptoeing around Harry, quietly waiting for disaster to strike, trying to contain herself and keep everything at bay. But Peter isn't fragile, and neither is she—and she doesn't have to worry about burning any bridges with him, because as far as she is concerned, he was a lost cause from the start.

"Since when?" she asks, trying to sound flippant. Her voice cracks audibly, though, giving her away. "All I am to you is Gwen's stupid friend."

"Well, you are being pretty stupid right now."

She picks up the pace, the wind whipping at her sides, howling in her ears.

"Hey, what the hell is your problem?" asks Peter. "Why are you so angry?"

She flips her body around to face him and their bodies collide. He is a surprisingly steady force, his arms reaching out to steady her before she even realizes she is falling. She is so short in comparison to him that her face smacks right into his chest, and she grabs her nose impulsively, even though it doesn't hurt.

She wants to answer his question. She wants to tell him how he creeps into her every other thought and that she wishes she did the same to him. She wants to tell him that she can't stand being just Gwen's friend to him, being someone that Peter only looks at occasionally in pity or disdain.

"Forget it," she says.

He raises his eyebrows, blowing out an impatient puff of air. "I don't know what you want me to say here. We're all tired, Mary Jane, we're all sick of this. I'm not saying I don't want you around, I just think that any place is better than here."

"Then get out yourself," she says. The words feel urgent and right, and she can almost imagine them packing their bags even they spill out of her: "You, me, Gwen. We'll leave the city. You can take pictures somewhere else. Spiderman will understand."

Peter purses his lips. "And Harry …?"

"Of course Harry," MJ says, her face on fire with embarrassment. "Jeez, Parker, that goes without saying."

Peter shakes his head. "I can't leave."

MJ crosses her arms. "Give me one good reason."

It seems as though there is a sudden darkness cast across his features, even in the bright light of day. MJ isn't expecting the intensity of his expression, and almost takes a step back, but then it disappears so quickly she wonders if she just imagined it.

"Because," Peter says. "Somebody has to stop him."

The wind picks up speed again. Her ears are so cold that they have reached the point of excruciating numbness, the kind that pierces and pulses through her head.

She knows he is talking about the weapons, or whatever it is that he is designing for OsCorp, because that is the only way a guy like Peter Parker could help. What she doesn't understand is why it has to happen _here_. Can't he draw up weapons plans in another city?

"Peter—" she starts, but she is interrupted by a shrill scream.

Peter's eyes widen, staring at something behind her, something off in the distance. She feels her entire body seize with panic. She is too afraid to turn around. It doesn't matter, because she already knows what's waiting for her there.

His cackle echoes through the city street and seems to throb in her bones.

"Whatever you do," says Peter, "don't go underground."

She is barely listening. His words don't stand a chance of cutting through her terror. She hears another scream, this one much closer, and she can't help but turn to face its owner. A woman is white-faced and shrieking, running from something in the street.

She turns back to Peter—how strange, that she might just die here with him, that after all this insignificant personal torment she has experienced, after all this useless pining and despair—but Peter is gone.

"What …" she manages.

She thinks maybe he has started running. But they're in an open area. Even with a two second head start he couldn't run completely out of sight, and yet he is absolutely nowhere to be found.

There is no time to be hurt, or angry, or confused. Yet she stands there anyway, all but facing the Goblin as he soars closer to the ground. She glances out toward the street, expecting to see people scurrying and running, as desperate as last time to escape, but with a lurch of disbelief she realizes she is the only one left. Everybody else knows the drill by now—everybody else is long gone.

She runs, runs to the only place she can think of: right back up into the very apartment she moved out of months ago. She never gave back her key. She tears up the stairs of the building, listening to the sounds of explosives going off below, feeling a misguided sense of purpose and calm.

She lets herself in and locks the door, then heads straight into her old room. It's empty. She shuts off the light, slams the door, sits in the corner, and waits.

* * *

Somehow, MJ falls asleep on the floor in the tiny room that used to be hers. She wakes up to four missed calls from Peter, and a voicemail that she doesn't listen to. The clock on the phone lets her know that she has slept for nearly three hours.

The room is pitch black still, but she makes no move to turn on the light. She feels small in here. She remembers being small, thinking that if she curled her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around herself she could make herself disappear. And she remembers growing up, wishing more than anything that she could.

MJ rarely thinks about her mother, but she does now. She doesn't know that much about the woman. She likes to imagine that they are similar. That her mother would have understood her impulsiveness, her drama, her sometimes misguided ambitions. That she would have soothed the heartaches of her teenage years, and understood MJ for all of her flaws and talents.

She was six years old when her mother died. It was her aunt who told her, her aunt who picked her up from school that day, her eyes red-rimmed and streaming. MJ doesn't remember much about what happened in the aftermath, but she will never forget that unsettling, helpless feeling, sitting in a scratchy chair in the principal's office, so short that her feet dangled up from the floor.

Her aunt didn't take her home for a long time. She doesn't know how long, because time didn't seem very well-defined back then, but she didn't see her father at all until the funeral and even then he barely spoke to her, just hugged her for so long and so hard that she couldn't breathe. She was afraid to pull away, afraid that he would leave her, but what she didn't understand back then was that he already had.

It was a heart attack that killed her. The kind of heart attack that just happens to perfectly healthy and ordinary people, the kind that nobody can predict. MJ's father had been a recovering alcoholic when he met her mother ten years earlier, and had been sober for that entire decade, until the day she died.

These are things nobody explained to MJ until she was older. She lived with her aunt for some time after her mother's death, but then when her aunt moved to Cincinnati she gave MJ back to her father, who, to his credit, managed to keep her alive and fed and accounted for, at least until the teenage years. No, it wasn't until her aunt moved back and invited MJ over and got a little wistful and teary off of a few glasses of scotch that she told MJ the entire story, or at least what she knew of it.

It was then that MJ decided that she hated her aunt. She had the small comfort of knowing that the screaming and the alcohol and the fights were her own secret, because in her mind it justified nobody doing anything to help her. She liked to think that if it ever became too much, she could tell someone, anyone, and they might be able to fix her.

But here her aunt had known all along, and had left her in New York. As the woman tearfully recounted the tale of MJ's parents, as if it were a part of the past that was terrible but settled and done, MJ felt her resentment of her aunt grow stronger and stronger until it nearly consumed her. Because it _wasn't_ settled and done. The misery had gone on for years, and had yet to stop. At sixteen years old MJ had run away from home more times than she could count, only to sneak back in a few days later to a father who hadn't even noticed she was gone. She had lived with broken windows and hurtful words and the stink of beer and waste in her nostrils ever since she could remember. It was true that her father had never hit her, but the things he had said, the jabs at how worthless and stupid and unworthy she was, had already left enough scars to last a lifetime.

"Fuck you," MJ said to her aunt on that night.

The woman had raised her eyebrows at MJ, both shocked and indignant. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me." MJ trembled. She had never told anyone to fuck themselves before. "You're supposed to be my mother's sister. But I hope she wasn't _anything_ like you."

She left then, and never spoke to her aunt after that. She supposes now that she should have explained to the woman why she was so angry, because by lashing out she just gave her an excuse to continue ignoring MJ. But these are things MJ never considers until the aftermath.

MJ never told anyone about her home life, at least not until college, when she gave Gwen some of the barest details. She figured once she left it was a chapter of her life that was over, and would stay over for as long as she could help it. It was easy to walk away from her father, so easy that she wondered if there was something wrong with her, that she felt no obligation to help him at all.

MJ slowly stretches her body out until she lays flat on the floor, staring up at the ceiling where a bare light bulb hangs. She breathes in and out, trying to let her mind go blank, or at least go some other place. It used to be easy. She has always kept busy, with trivial things like auditions and classes and boyfriends who don't last the month.

But everything seems so heavy now, and serious, and permanent. It feels like time is slowing down and she has nothing to do to fill up the hours. And it's in this terrible solitude that the memories come rushing back, unbidden and streaked with remorse.

She remembers standing in front of a mirror, watching her mother unpin hot rollers from her hair, bright and just the same shade as hers. She remembers her mother talking to her from the front seat as the countryside flew by out the windows of their old car. She remembers a yellow dress her mother sometimes wore on the weekends in the summer, and how she would hold MJ's hand as they walked what seemed like an impossible distance to an ice cream shop near their house that has long since shut down. She remembers her father sneaking up on her mother to wrap his arms around her in the kitchen, and she remembers her first airplane ride, how she didn't want to sit by the window because she wanted to be sitting right between the two of them, her mother on her left and her father on her right. If she really remembers hard enough she can almost conjure the smell of her mother's perfume.

She remembers feeling safe, and feeling loved. She remembers it so vividly and presently that it feels like if she shuts her eyes and wills it hard enough, she can bring the feeling back.

A door slams. Somebody has come home. MJ swipes at her eyes, but there aren't any tears.

She can't sit here in the dark. She has to announce herself. She doesn't live here anymore.

When she creaks the door open she is expecting to see Gwen, who wouldn't mind her being here in the least, but instead she finds herself staring across the room at Peter. She immediately looks away, her face burning. She can't decide if she is furious with him or not. Sure, he called a bunch of times and left a voicemail, but that doesn't change the fact that he flat out _abandoned_ her in the middle of an attack.

"What the _hell_, Mary Jane."

Her eyes snap up to meet his. His cheeks are practically flaming, and he is advancing on her fast.

"What?" she snaps.

He opens his mouth and seems too furious to speak. He has almost reached her when he says, "I had _no idea_ what happened to you, have you been sitting in here the whole _fucking time?_"

She has never heard Peter use language like this in all the time she has known him. She sucks in a breath, intending to defend herself, but his intensity has knocked the wind out of her. She just stares at him, petrified and awestruck at the same time.

"I've been looking _everywhere_—"

"You ran!" She is surprised by how choked the words sound, how accusatory. "You ran away, what was I supposed to—"

"Pick up the _damn phone_, for Christ's sake," Peter yells. She looks at him defiantly, not at all willing to budge or apologize. She thinks he has reached the limit, the most worked up he can get, but she is wrong—he reacts to her expression by grabbing her by the shoulders and shouting, "I thought you were _dead_."

They hover there, his hands gripping her, hard. There is something undeniable in this moment when their eyes meet, and she thinks it would be so easy to fall into him, to use the charge and heat of this awful moment to lean forward and kiss him. They are both breathing, hard, into each other's faces. He is close, closer than he has ever been.

She wonders if he would stop her right away, or if there would be a few seconds, a few unforgettable, meaningful seconds when he didn't.

She pulls away first, jerking her arms out of his grasp, unintentionally backing into the wall with a thud.

He takes a few blundering steps back. "Mary Jane," he says, still heated, but with an edge of apology in his voice.

"I'm sorry." She's crying now, without consciously realizing it until she opens her mouth to speak. "I'm sorry," she says again, but not for the missed calls, not for making him angry, but for the unimaginably terrible thing she could have just done.

She sees him visibly loosen, sees out of the corner of her eyes as the guilt sags on his face, heavy and tired. She knows what he is thinking of. The evening her father tried to break the door down to the apartment, drunk and hollering. They haven't spoken of it since, even though she sometimes catches him looking at her in a certain way, with what she suspects is pity in his eyes. It's the look he's giving her now.

A part of her wants to let him feel bad about it. He deserves to, after leaving her there to die.

"I didn't mean to—jeez, Mary Jane," he says, approaching again, somewhat hesitantly this time.

"It's fine, it's fine," she stammers through her tears, because she doesn't want him to think that that's why she is rattled—that she is comparing his anger even for a second to her father's. She doesn't know why she is crying, but that isn't it.

She isn't expecting the solid if not slightly awkward embrace of his arms around her, but she lets him hold her. There is none of the electricity before, no urge to overcome, no passion to reign in. She feels stripped and bare. She can't even fathom trying something with him, can't even fathom that she was capable of it not ten seconds before.

Still, there is something undeniable about being here, in his arms like this. She has imagined in a thousand times, even let the idea of it creep into her dreams. He is warm and familiar. He is the feeling that she has yearned for, the certainty that comes with knowing someone cares, someone will protect her, someone thinks she matters.

A fresh wave of tears threatens to burst at this thought. This isn't her reality. It belongs to Gwen.

She pulls herself away from him, but it's harder this time.

"I have to go," she manages.

She pushes past him and the words that he can't find fast enough, shutting the door and heading straight for the stairs. Her coat, her purse, her phone are all still in the apartment, but she can't turn back now, because she is afraid of what she might do.

The cold air is a relief now, the chill forgiving, like it has the power to blow away her treacherous thoughts. She welcomes it, and decides to walk all the way back to her apartment with Harry, even though it takes the better part of an hour.

Peter never explained why he left her in the street the way he did, but she knows she will never ask. She can't let herself care about him, or anything he says or does, not anymore. She is ending this. It was harmless before, when it was all in her head, but today marks the day that she can no longer pretend that her feelings for him are innocent.

Harry smiles at her from the couch when she gets home. He doesn't notice anything different about her at all, doesn't ask why she looks so windswept or where her coat has gone. He is happy and off in some little world that he thinks she is a part of, kissing her hello the same way he always does, completely unsuspecting and good.

"How were your auditions today?" he asks.

She sits on the couch with him, kicking off her shoes. Her toes are numb from the cold.

"Oh, you know," she says, staring at the red rash of blood trying to circulate back into her feet. "Well enough."

He wraps an arm around her. Nothing in her stirs in the slightest, and that never seemed to matter, until now when she knows the difference.

"I missed you," he says. "I was thinking about you all day."

She smiles without looking at him. The words feel hollow on her tongue. "Me too."


	9. Chapter 9

**Perpendicular**

"It's a little frilly."

"Are you kidding? Gwen, this is like, the least frilly it can get. And still look like a wedding dress."

"I look like a cupcake."

"You _look_ like a bride."

Gwen scowls at herself in the mirror. "I don't like it."

MJ clucks overdramatically. "I think it's perfect," she says. "But fine. Let's try another."

The problem is that Gwen looks good in just about anything she tries on. She is still slender and beautiful in that understated way of hers, the way she has been since MJ met her in high school. Her hair has grown out in the past few years and is striking against her pale bare shoulders and delicate collarbones.

She would be jealous of Gwen but the truth is, she has been looking forward to this for a long time. It is nearly impossible with Gwen's busy schedule to ever go shopping with her, and MJ doesn't really have the means to shop on her own anyway, or any other friends she would go with. So picking out a wedding dress for Gwen is like the shopping equivalent of a dying man in the desert getting his first drink of water in two days. She loves choosing the styles, she loves bargain hunting, she loves the big reveal every time Gwen comes out in a new dress.

It's easy to separate this part from the fact that she is marrying Peter. This is clearly a girl task, one that has very little to do with Peter at all, except for the fact that he'll see her in it. But really, it's Peter. Gwen could walk down the aisle in a paper bag and he probably wouldn't even notice the difference.

So MJ lets herself enjoy this. It is probably the most frivolous and girly thing that they will be able to do together for a long time. At least until MJ gets married, but that is the last thing she wants to think about right now.

"You really don't mind?" Gwen asks.

MJ glances at the stack of rejected dresses behind them. "Of course not," she says.

"It's just, I don't want anything too fancy. It's a small wedding, a short ceremony, you know? No reason to go over the top."

"I'm just saying, Gwen. It's like—you have one chance in your life to go over the top, and this is it. So if you're going to do it, do it now."

Gwen smirks at her endearingly. "You're going to have a giant princess wedding, and I'm sure the Osborn after party will be _more_ than enough to make up for the lackluster dinner after mine and Peter's."

MJ smiles back and swallows hard. "Hey," she says, "why don't I go grab that veil in the window? Just for fun," she says, already seeing Gwen dissent. "C'mon! For fun?"

"Alright," says Gwen.

MJ darts away from the full-length mirror in pursuit of the veil, wondering how much truth there will be to Gwen's prediction. If she marries Harry she really has no choice about the size of the wedding. There is no "intimate ceremony" when the groom is an Osborn, that much she knows for sure. Harry's father is surely going to invite half of his business cohorts to keep up appearances, and Harry has a bunch of friends in different social circles from college, work, and high school. She feels a little sick thinking about it, though, because she knows they will expect her to invite plenty of people, too. And who does she really have besides Peter and Gwen and a few loose actress friends she has kept over the years?

She tries to imagine her father walking her down the aisle and quickly dismisses the thought. She wonders how much bad karma it would be to lie and just tell Harry her father is dead. She is still considering it when she bounces back up to Gwen and plants the veil on the crown of her head.

Gwen looks modest and chaste in it, blushing like a spring bride under the lace. For a fleeting moment MJ catches her getting caught up in the glamour of it all, admiring her reflection and looking a little bit on the verge of tears. MJ wants to poke fun at her, because even practical, straightforward girls like Gwen have vulnerable sides, but she doesn't want to embarrass her. It isn't often that Gwen relaxes these days.

And then the spell is broken. Gwen inhales sharply and says, "I'd probably just step on it," removing the veil and handing it back to MJ in one swift motion.

MJ sits on one of the bridal store's stools, watching the lace spread out between her fingers. Even when she was a little girl she had an appreciation for pretty things. Her mother's closet was mostly untouched, but in the few occasions she snuck in there she found a collection of small and tasteful earrings, some bejeweled hair clips, and a poofy but fashionable wedding dress from straight out of the eighties. MJ never tried any of them on, but she liked to imagine herself grown up, with an air of refinement like she imagined her mother once had.

She stands up and hangs the veil back up on its mannequin.

"It might help if you actually knew _when_ you were getting hitched. Maybe it would narrow it down, if you could pick a season, or something," MJ suggests on her way back.

Gwen smiles one of those happy, secret smiles, the kind that MJ only ever sees on people who are in love.

"Actually," she says, "we were thinking about March."

MJ feels her own smile tighten. "That's three months away."

Gwen shrugs. "It's informal. And it's cheaper to book things in the off-season. Why not?"

She steps off the pedestal in front of the mirror, heading back to the dressing room to select another gown. MJ watches as the door clacks shut.

"Why not," she repeats to herself.

It'll be like ripping off a band-aid. This is the only mercy the universe has offered her since the feelings began. March will come soon, and then when they're married, there will be no room for "what if"s and "if I could just"s. MJ has to believe that the finality of it will cure her; she has to believe that, because nothing else so far has.

* * *

It's nearing Christmas when Harry declares that he found a house in upstate New York, and that they can move before the new year.

MJ laughs. Of course he must be kidding. But then there is a marked silence after the laugh echoes through the apartment, and halfway to the kitchen she stops and turns around to sneak a glance at him.

"I mean it," Harry says. "It's not safe here."

She is holding their dirty plates from dinner in her hands. The spaghetti churns uncomfortably in her stomach.

"I can't leave the city," she says.

"Why?" he asks. "What's keeping you here?"

She finds herself struggling for a moment to answer him, afraid that she might say the wrong thing, because her reasons aren't all entirely admirable. "The wedding," she flounders, but that is a flimsy excuse. "My _career_," she emphasizes, because that is already a given.

Harry shakes his head. "C'mon, Mary Jane. Broadway is all but shutting down, all the major auditions have moved to other cities. I don't know anything about the business and I know that."

She purses her lips. She knows he's right. The auditions are scarcer and fewer people show up to them every time. She has won a few bit parts in things but it doesn't come with much glory because none of them really matter—the big guns in the entertainment business packed up months ago, and probably won't come back anytime soon.

She tries it another way: "This is the only home I know."

"I understand that," says Harry, patient as ever. "And we're not leaving forever. We can always come back. And didn't you say you wanted adventures? Just think of it this way—we can take some time, go traveling together—see Europe, and Asia, anywhere you want to go."

It is so tempting. To take his hand and fly off into the sunset. She imagines the boutiques in Paris, the gondolas in Italy, all the captivating staples from post cards of places she has always wanted to go. It could be so amazing, to wake up in a city she has never seen before, to explore places she can hardly even fathom. The furthest she has ever been from home was a class trip to Florida, but this—what Harry is offering her—is the whole world.

She can tell by the expression on his face that he thinks he has won her over. For a moment, she thinks he has, too.

"It feels like running away," she says.

He walks over to her, closing the distance between them. "It is," he says. "But what's the matter with that? We have each other. And as long as I'm with you, I don't care where we are. That's enough for me."

For a paralyzing moment she is afraid he is going to propose. Not just afraid, but terror-stricken. She clutches to the plates because there are tremors running through her stiff arms.

But Harry doesn't seem to sense any of this. It feels like the internal monologue in her head is screaming and gasping for air, it feels like she is suffocating in this too-large apartment so many floors up from the ground, but he just stares at her, all earnest and purposeful, in a way that makes her feel like he is seeing right through her.

She has been concerned for so long that she is changing—changing too much, becoming somebody else. It started with the feelings for Peter, and it feels as if it has only worsened from there, because she relates to Harry less and less as the days go by. But it suddenly occurs to her that she might not be the only one who has changed. Harry is different, too. He has lost the spark that she remembers so well—the wild charm, the wry and inappropriate expressions, the indignant resentment toward his father. All of his extremes are now smooth edges, and he seems to her now like he is just a shell of the person she first met two years ago.

The old Harry would have seen her hesitation. He would have recognized the doubt in her eyes, and maybe he even would have been a little angry. He would have wanted her to trust him right away, to follow him blindly, and he might have even insisted on it.

Is that what she wants? For him to be bold, for him to be commanding? It used to bother her. But now it bothers her that someone can change this drastically in so short of a time.

"I can't," she says. She turns her back on him, opening the dishwasher to set the plates inside.

He follows her. There is no passion or rage in his voice. "It's not safe here," he says again. "That's all I want, is for us to be safe. And together."

She stares into the dishwasher.

"I really hope you change your mind."

They don't discuss it any further after that. In fact, they don't discuss much at all. Harry turns on the television and they sit in the darkness. He doesn't reach out for her hand, or try to coax her into sex. He hardly even kisses her good night. And when she thinks about it, it has been that way for a long time. It just hasn't bothered her until now.

She waits until Harry falls asleep. He sleeps like a rock and always has. She pads carefully across the carpeted room and slips into the bathroom, careful to shut the door with the knob twisted so he won't hear it click shut. Then she opens the medicine cabinet.

Five little bottles of pills she doesn't recognize. She pulls them out one by one. She knows that she is dating Harry Osborn, so anything in this cabinet can be easily replaced, probably within the hour—but still, she has to know.

She unscrews each of them and leans down, watching the pills as they spill out of their bottles and swirl into the toilet bowl. As she flushes them down she wonders if Harry is already too far gone, or if maybe this is the one thing she can do to get a piece of him back.

* * *

The next day MJ wakes up before Harry, and sneaks out, not even bothering with a shower. She leaves the apartment without a plan of where she is going, and finds herself descending onto a subway platform and heading back to Queens.

She is hit with an indescribable and unwarranted nostalgia as she climbs back up into her old neighborhood on that sunny December morning, the brisk wind blowing her hair off of her neck. It's been years since she has come back to Queens, which is remarkable considering Manhattan is a practically a rock's throw away. She hadn't meant to avoid it so well, and hadn't been consciously aware that she was doing so until just now.

There is no reason for her to be here. She has no desire to see her father, or any of the spots around town where she grew up. It's astounding how unsentimental she feels about her own past. The things worth remembering were always with friends, always in the city—this was just the place she had to reluctantly return to at the end of the day, and her father was just the body snoring on the couch when she came home.

Despite the sun she feels a cold that cuts her to the bone. She ducks into a coffee shop, one that she passed a lot as a kid on her way in and out but never had a reason to stop in. She orders a coffee because it's the cheapest thing on the menu, and sits there holding it between her cold fingers.

"Mary Jane?"

It takes her a moment to place the old woman in front of her as Peter's aunt. When MJ recognizes her, she feels her face heat up with embarrassment for not realizing it right away.

"Hi, May," she says, smiling and trying to sound amiable.

May looks older than MJ remembered, but as sharp as ever. She is dressed in a familiar and well-loved coat that MJ has seen her wear whenever she has visited them during the colder months in the city.

"How are you, dear?" she says, grasping for MJ's hands in a warm and familiar way that MJ isn't expecting, a way that makes her feel so grateful that she almost wants to cry. "My, your hands are cold, you must be freezing. Won't you come back to the house with me? Do you have anywhere to be?"

MJ opens her mouth, about to lie. First off, she doesn't want to impose. And she certainly doesn't want to impose on a woman whose nephew she has harbored incredibly inappropriate feelings for. But if that isn't reason enough, there is nothing in this world that would make MJ want to go within a fifty foot radius of her old house, where she is sure her father is in the very same state he was eight years ago when she left it.

But May seems so sincere, and so lonely. MJ stares into her face and suddenly feels her own crushing brand of loneliness in full force, the kind of loneliness she knows she is selfish for feeling at all. She has plenty of people in her life who love her. But there is something undeniably maternal about May, who has always treated her with an affection and kindness that MJ doesn't even deserve. And now MJ sees in her a kind of kindred sadness. The sadness of people who have been left behind.

"No," says MJ. "Actually, I don't."

She is afraid May is going to ask her what on earth brought her to Queens in the first place, but she doesn't. She smiles and says excellent, that she made some of the brownies she knows MJ likes, and MJ doesn't even have the heart to tell her that she's on one of her crazy quick fix diets that cuts out carbs and dairy. She follows May back, making cheerful conversation, and she is so engaged as they hit her old street that she almost forgets where they are until May's gaze lingers on MJ's old house on their way up the walk.

MJ stiffens, but only for a moment. May looks away from MJ's old windows and lets her inside without comment.

She has never been to Peter's boyhood home before. It looks just how she imagined it, which isn't difficult because his house is laid out in the exact same floor plan as hers. Except where MJ's house had bare walls and neglected rooms full of old papers and untouched shrines of random things her mother left behind, Peter's house is full of knick-knacks and photos and happy memories. The house seems smaller somehow, and cozier. MJ doesn't have that usual feeling she gets visiting someone else's home, the uncomfortable and out of place feeling that makes her check her watch and wonder how long until it is acceptable to excuse herself and leave. In fact, she stays so long that hours pass, sitting on the couch with May, drinking tea and exchanging stories.

She tells MJ about Peter as a little boy, how he took after his scientist parents right away, so curious and full of questions that even at a young age she and his uncle couldn't keep up with him. She tells MJ how Peter always insisted on chronicling every birthday, anniversary and holiday with disposable cameras, his precursor to the digital camera they finally broke down and bought him when he turned twelve. She tells her about how she knew right away that Gwen was special, long before Peter brought her home.

"But you must remember that, from back in high school," May says, with a wistful glimmer in her eyes.

MJ shakes her head. "I wasn't really friends with Peter and Gwen in high school," she admits, even though it is hard to imagine a time without them. Without meaning to, she stares out the window of the living room, which looks into the window of her old kitchen. Of course, the shades are drawn. "I didn't even realize we were neighbors."

May presses her lips into a thin line, and MJ knows what's coming now.

"I don't see your father very often," she says carefully.

MJ only nods. She doesn't have to look up at May to know that her eyes are steady on MJ's face, searching for a reaction.

"Peter told me—"

"Peter told you?" MJ interrupts thoughtlessly. May seems a bit taken aback, so she asks in a quieter voice, "Peter told you what?"

The lines of May's face soften so visibly that MJ doesn't really need an answer. She stands abruptly, before May can explain, because she doesn't want to talk about it. She has what little confirmation she need that her father is, in fact, still alive. And as far as she is concerned, she is set for the next few years.

"So," she says, trying to shake the uneasiness out of her words. "Where's Peter's old room?"

May gives her a wry smile and leads her up the stairs. "It's a mess," says May apologetically. "I honestly don't understand how it happens. I clean it but even if he comes to visit for an hour, it seems to go right back to its natural state."

When May opens the door to the room MJ can't say she is surprised by the messiness. It's just that there is so much of Peter in the room. Splayed out on the floor are all sorts of papers full of calculations, books with titles she doesn't understand, and old touched up photos that he has long since forgotten. She pretends she is only giving the contents of it a cursory glance, but in truth there is a lump forming in her throat.

The room even _smells_ like him. It's a little bit scary, how fast an innocuous whiff of deodorant or laundry detergent or whatever it is makes her remember the exact feeling of those few moments she spent mere inches from his face. She tries not to breathe it in, but it's everywhere.

When did she start noticing things like this? At what point had she started unconsciously categorizing the parts of him that hadn't mattered for so many years?

She wonders what he would think of her being in here right now. She wonders if she'll even bother to tell him. Probably not. Even if May mentions it to him, she doubts he'd really care all that much. He has never seemed to care what MJ thinks of him.

The phone rings.

"I left the cordless downstairs," says May, ducking out of the room. "I'll just be a minute."

MJ stands there, uncertain whether or not she should follow. If May is expecting a call, she doesn't want to be rude and stand there while she is talking on the phone. But at the same time it feels like her permission to be in this room walked out the door with Peter's aunt. She waits, hovering a little awkwardly for about a minute, but May doesn't return.

MJ takes a few hesitant steps toward Peter's desk. She has no intention of rooting around in its contents, but she sees a photo of Gwen peeking out from one of the drawers. Even though it's upside down she can tell right away that Gwen is younger in it. Something indefinable in her cheeks gives it away, and her hair is pulled up in a short ponytail with a headband, the way she used to wear it their senior year. MJ tugs at the corner to pull it out and sees that it's a blown-up, cropped picture of Gwen from out of the debate team photo—she can only tell because Peter didn't successfully get rid of Scott Lester's face on the left of Gwen, the biggest debate club dweeb there ever was.

There are pictures under this one, most of them from high school, a lot of them of Gwen. It's creepy in a sweet kind of way, how many pictures he has of her that were clearly taken unaware. She sees one of Gwen sitting on the bleachers, clearly waiting for Peter. She sees another one of Gwen with her earbuds on at a bus stop. The one where Gwen is sticking her head in her locker, she actually catches half of her own face in the shot, looking at somebody who must be walking beside her. She wonders if it's Richard, but finds that she doesn't really care.

She puts the photos back and glances toward his closet, surprised to see that there are clothes still in it, and some decent clothes at that. She isn't really thinking when she walks over and touches the sleeve of one of his button-downs, one that she has never seen him wear. She supposes it would be impractical for running all over the city with a camera, but it's the kind of shirt he could easily wear out to dinner with Gwen. It's a little bit wrinkled, so she straightens it out absent-mindedly with her fingers, when the hanger topples to the floor.

She glances at the door, embarrassed to think May might have heard, but nobody's there. She leans down to pick it up and set it straight on its hanger, but in the process of reaching forward the hanger snags on one of the many boxes Peter has haphazardly shoved on the top shelf and sends two of them hurtling to the floor.

This is only typical, MJ thinks to herself, as the heat in her cheeks grows from mildly warm to burning. Any second now May is going to climb back up the stairs and think that MJ is certifiably insane, snooping through her nephew's stuff like a lovesick stalker. Okay, so while she probably wouldn't make all those assumptions right away, who wouldn't be concerned to find a supposedly sane twenty-six-year old girl rooting through someone else's closet?

Not for the first or last time in her life, she hated the limitations of her short stature. At five foot one she barely made it up to Peter's shoulders, which was all the more evident by how high he stacked all his crap up in his closet. She collects all the little objects and papers and shoves them back into their boxes without looking at them, trying her best to hurry before May shows up again, and stands on her tiptoes in an effort to hoist them back up.

It's hopeless. Not unless she tosses them up there. She looks around for a chair and sees a swiveling one by the desk, but she has fallen off chairs like that enough times to know better than to stand on it.

After a few excruciating seconds of deliberation, she gathers up the boxes and tries a tiny hop, intending to toss them behind the boxes that are already up there. But they are not nearly as steady as she assumes, and a fourth box falls to the floor, spilling its bright contents out onto the carpet.

She can't help but look at his things this time. The colors are bright red and blue and oddly shiny and smooth. She crouches down to touch it.

"Spandex?" she mutters to herself.

It's just pieces of material, some much bigger than others. They look like scraps. She picks a few more of them up and sees that some of them have ridges, ridges that look like there are patterns on them.

She's seen this before. It takes her longer than it should, but when she sees a piece with half of the Spiderman insignia on it, she suddenly feels a rush of blood surging in her veins followed by a sudden numb.

She drops the material, and stands quickly, taking a step back from it. But there it is, still on the floor, staring back at her.

There is an explanation for this. She is sure. There _has_ to be. It could be a costume—it could be an old school project—Christ, Peter is _friends_ with Spiderman, maybe the guy just left it here and—

"Oh, god."

She can practically feel the synapses in her brain firing on overload. Peter's frequent and bizarre disappearances, the unexplainable bruises and cuts. The perpetual look of fear and worry in Gwen's eyes. The cryptic statements Peter makes in the hours she has found him just before dawn.

"No," says MJ, a hand covering her mouth. "Oh my god. _No_."

There are footsteps on the stairs, a distinct click of May's shoes growing closer. There is no time to dwell on it. MJ shoves the evidence back into the box and jams it into the closet and out of view. At some point Peter will probably see it there, see that it has been tampered with and jump to all sorts of conclusions, but that day is not to day and honestly right now it is the least of her worries.

"Sorry, I've been waiting for that repair man to call me all day," says May as she walks into the room.

MJ's voice is breathy, and the words come too fast. "What needs fixing?"

"Oh, just about everything. But the hot water tap in the shower, especially."

MJ is struck by a sudden memory of her father with a wrench in his hands, the upper half of his body disappeared under the sink. It's the kind of memory she had no reason to unearth for over two decades, and the image feels like an unexpected firework shooting off in her brain.

"It used to be that Peter could fix stuff like that up for me. You girls are lucky to have him there in the city."

MJ wrings her hands together, trying desperately not to look into the closet. "Yes," she says. "We are."

* * *

By the time she leaves May it is nearly dusk. Her mind is nearly empty as the train whirs underneath her feet, catapulting her back into the city. It is the only way she can remain calm. Breathe in, breathe out. All she can hear is the sound of her own breathing.

She is so preoccupied by the time she turns the key into the lock that she has forgotten everything that has happened before this day. Nothing else seems to matter, all trivial and shoved into clutter at the back of her mind. All she sees is that little half of a Spiderman insignia, staring back up at her, terrible and incriminating.

"What the _fuck_ were you thinking?"

There are empty bottles on the coffee table. The stench of the alcohol hits a second later. The scene is so familiar to her that she grabs the doorknob on impulse, already prepared to leave without any second thoughts.

"What the _fuck?_" Harry says again, his voice louder this time, yelling at her.

She juts her chin out. "You're drunk."

"You bet I am," he snarls, standing up from the couch. He is fierce, primal in his rage, his lip curled in a menacing way she has never seen before. She is oddly unafraid. "How could you do that to me? Where the _fuck_ did you put all the pills?"

"I flushed them," she says lowly. She straightens her back, self-righteousness stirring in her gut. She feels more alive in this moment than she has in weeks.

"You _what?_"

"I _flushed th_—"

"I heard you!" he yells, advancing on her, his hands balled into fists. There is a large and distinct vein throbbing in his red forehead. "God dammit, what do you think gave you the right? Do you have _any idea_—to just wake up, and they're not there, and you've gone who the _fuck_ knows where—"

"Yeah, well now you know how I feel," MJ spits right back at him. "I don't even know who you are anymore, Harry."

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" Harry snaps. "What are you saying, that I've done something wrong? I've been perfectly good to you, I've done everything I can think of, I've loved you and taken care of you and never _once_ done you wrong."

The words feel like nails on a chalkboard. She doesn't want to acknowledge how much he has done for her, not if she wants to keep what little shreds of her pride she has left.

"It's not about that," she says. "It's—you're different, Harry. Ever since you started taking those drugs—"

"If you had such a big fucking problem with it, why didn't you _say _something?" he demands. He is shaking. He is inches from her and shaking, so hard that she knows it must be withdrawal, she has seen it enough times, hasn't she? "God dammit, we could have had a _mature conversation_ about it, if you had ever said anything _once_, but instead you go and flush all the pills? What is wrong with you?"

The words sting. She has no defense. There were plenty of times she could have talked to him, she could have fixed things. The problem is, she is starting to see, that she wanted this. She wanted it to fall apart. She has been waiting for this moment for months, the moment that he loses it, that he screams and starts a fight and gives her a reason to walk out the door.

Here it is. She sees the moment hovering in his trembling lip and fiery eyes. This is the line that they have to cross, the instance where she has to provoke him _just enough_ that she can have a reason to pack her bags and leave.

She opens her mouth, drawing in an important and weighted breath, deciding as the words tumble out of her.

"I'm sorry," she says. The words are curt and low, but they are not fighting words. She will not end it this way. "I'm sorry. You're right."

She isn't expecting him to reach out and grab her arm. His grip is vice-like, and in his drunken state he doesn't realize the power he has put behind it, and she ends up stumbling back.

"I know I'm right," he seethes, "I don't need you to tell me."

"Harry," she says, warningly.

"Do you even want me anymore?" he continues, his grip not lessening in the slightest. "It's been weeks, Mary Jane. Don't think I don't notice—the excuses, the way you're never around anymore. What is it, huh?" he asks. His grip is getting tighter on her, and he grabs her other arm, too. She doesn't back away from him because she knows he won't take it too far, and she doesn't want to seem weak, doesn't want to seem afraid of him. "I've done _everything I can think of_. So what _is it? _Are you bored? Is there some other guy?"

"No," she says, maybe a little too indignantly. "Jesus, Harry, no. Get a grip—"

"Don't you _dare_ tell me I'm imagining it," he screams, and this time his whole body shudders with the words, and he backs her into the door with a thud.

"_Harry_—"

"What kind of an idiot do you take me for? I get it, you're beautiful, you can have any guy you want—but I thought you loved _me_."

She wriggles away, trying to escape his grip. Her breath is hitched and short. "You're _hurting_ me—"

He doesn't hear her over his own voice. "Is it one of those filthy nightclub promoters? Someone from Empire State? Do I know the guy, or were you counting on me never finding out?"

She breaks one hand free, and uses it to smack him across the face. Before she can get any distance from him he grabs the hand back and this time purposefully, deliberately throws her against the wall, trapping her there by her wrists. It doesn't hurt much, but the noise of it is excruciating, echoing through the huge apartment.

His eyes widen and for a moment they stare at each other, both equally horrified. She knows he is about to drop her, but first she kicks him in the shin and he doubles over. He is lucky she doesn't do any worse.

She walks around him, ignoring him as he groans. It takes him a while to catch up to her. By the time he reaches the bedroom she has already found her audition backpack, which has a toothbrush and clean underwear. Even if it didn't, she knows from experience that she could have much less than that and still leave.

"Where are you going?" Harry asks.

It's not an apology, but even if it was she wouldn't care. "None of your business."

"Are you going to tell me or just make me follow you to Gwen's?" he says, sounding more irritated than anything.

"You think I'm that stupid?" she fires back. Her arm is smarting where his fingers gripped her. She feels the bruises forming already. "I don't want you to follow me. I don't give a shit what happens to you."

"Nice," says Harry. "Real nice, Mary Jane. Make this sound like it's all _my_ fault."

"I'm not the one who's strung out on booze and pills like a fucking maniac," MJ defends herself. "I'm not the one so wrapped up in my daddy loving me that I can't see things that are _two feet away_."

"You try living with a man who never thinks you're good enough, and tell me how it feels!" Harry shouts at her back, as her hand grips the doorknob.

She shouldn't turn back around. It's not worth it. But she does anyway, her face hard and unyielding.

"I know exactly how it feels, not that you ever bothered to ask about _my_ father," she says. "And I'm not going to stick around and feel it all over again. Goodbye, Harry."

She slams the door in his face. She knows most girls would wait for a guy to chase them down the street, to make huge declarations of love and apology, but she is overwhelmingly relieved when she turns the corner and the apartment building leaves her sight. She has seven dollars in change floating around in her audition backpack, loose tips that she never bothered to exchange for dollar bills, and she uses them to get a subway ticket.

It feels like it should be late at night, because things like this only happen late at night, in her experience. But it's seven o'clock. Practically dinner time. She stares at the blank screen of her phone and considers texting Gwen, but she meant what she said. She doesn't want Harry to be able to find her that easily—she doesn't want him to be able to find her at all.

Instead she takes 7 train back to Queens. It is freezing by now. She passes cheery Christmas displays in bars and shops and the houses on her old street, but feels so far removed from it, as if she has stumbled into someone else's reality.

She hesitates for the first time when she reaches the walkway. It is awfully presumptuous of her to be doing this, but she can't think of any place else to go. She walks up and knocks on the door, and it only takes a few moments for May to answer.

May takes in the sight of MJ, her eyes lingering on her face, on her bare arms and the backpack slung over her shoulder. MJ takes a step back, about to explain, but May opens door further and tells her to come in before she can. As MJ babbles a less-than-coherent retelling of the last few hours, May starts the kettle and tells her she is welcome to stay up in Peter's room, that she can stay for as long as she likes.

MJ tells her how grateful she is, and that she is sure she will be gone by tomorrow, but she appreciates May's kindness. She heads to bed early, around nine o'clock. She rests her head on Peter's pillow and breathes in the smell of his detergent, and feels safer here, surrounded by these walls that once held him, than she has in years. It is strange to think that her own childhood room is just one peek out the window away.

Her eyes are so heavy. She starts to fall asleep easily, determined not to dwell on the fight. It's over now. There is nothing that she can undo or unsay, and tomorrow they will deal with it however they see fit.

What's harder to forget is the evidence in a box not ten feet away from her, of those innocent little strips of fabric that have the potential to upend her universe. As she is drifting into unconsciousness, it is easy to convince herself that there is an explanation, one that she hasn't thought of yet. She has always been impulsive, always quick to assume things without proper understanding, and this must just be another one of those times.

Peter isn't Spiderman. She feels a swell of relief when she decides to believe this. If Peter were Spiderman, how else could he get all those pictures anyway?

She hugs Peter's pillow closer to her chest, and wonders how he could have ever left this place for the city. MJ has never truly had a home before, but she thinks this must be what it feels like: to feel love without expectation or conditions, to feel safe from harm, to know that even if everything in her life implodes tomorrow, she has somewhere to turn.

Harry isn't that place for her anymore. She wonders if she will ever find it again.


	10. Chapter 10

**Perpendicular**

Harry calls the next day, and calls several times after that, but he doesn't leave any voicemails and MJ doesn't call him back. A few days pass and MJ reaches out to an old college friend about staying in her vacated apartment, knowing that she, among many other Empire State alums, has been living elsewhere since the Goblin attacks, but May insists that MJ stay with her. MJ tries to protest by saying she doesn't want to be a burden, but May puts her foot down and MJ fully understands for the first time why Peter was raised so well: whatever May says, goes.

Harry keeps calling at regular intervals, but MJ silences her phone, only picking it up for Gwen and work-related things. She gives Gwen the barest details of the fight. She tells her the stupid thing she did by flushing the pills, tells her that Harry got drunk and a little bit rough with her, and that they haven't worked it out yet. Gwen tries to insist that MJ come stay with them, shocked that Harry would ever lose control of himself like that, but MJ knows what Gwen will do if she steps foot in that apartment: she is going to tell MJ that this is not a second chance kind of thing, that a guy who is capable of getting rough once will do it again, and that she has to leave Harry, no excuses.

But it isn't black and white like that. Nothing is. The problem is that Harry is right—MJ may not have acted on her feelings for Peter, but that is not enough to dismiss the growing obsession with him and her distance from Harry. While Harry should never have let it escalate as far as it did, there are very few words he threw at her that didn't have an awful grain of truth to them.

May, for her part, doesn't ask much. MJ has the sense that she already knows the nature of what must have happened, and hates that she has turned herself into a cliché in May's eyes. It only makes sense that the girl with the drunk, abusive father would end up turning the city's most handsome and charming bachelor into a drunk, abusive boyfriend.

May works odd jobs, too, but luckily her hours tend to match up with MJ's well enough that they have breakfast together every morning and end up coming home around the same time every night. They start to take turns cooking, and leaving notes on the fridge to say where they have gone. It is tempting to fall into a routine, but MJ knows that she can't stay here long. As nice as May's company is, she could never take advantage of her, and honestly she isn't sure it is healthy for her to be in Peter's room, breathing in its achingly familiar air.

It doesn't even occur to her that it's Christmas Eve when she hears the door click open at ten in the morning.

"You're back early," says MJ.

She hears the footsteps stop. "Uh—hello?"

It's Peter. She freezes at the kitchen table. There's no point in trying to pretend she isn't here, but it takes her a few moments to summon her voice again, and by the time she does Peter has rounded the corner and taken her in.

"Hey," she says uncomfortably, feeling for the first time out of place in the Parker home.

Peter is holding a bag full of groceries and a wrapped present in his hands. "What …" he says, looking entirely bewildered. There is snow caught in his hair, starting to melt in the warmth of the house. His boots are trailing water into the front hallway. He stares at MJ. "What are you …" he manages, trying very hard not to be rude.

MJ clears her throat. "Where's Gwen?"

"With her brothers," says Peter, "but wait—what are you doing here? Was I supposed to—did someone tell me about this?"

A sharp laugh escapes MJ. "Um—no. I'm just—I've just been—" She struggles for a second, and he's staring at her expectantly. It's not like she can lie. "I've been staying with May," she mumbles.

Peter sets his bags down on the table. "Wait, what? Since when?"

"A few days ago," she says. She opens up his bag of groceries so she can busy herself with sticking things in their appropriate drawers and cupboards. "I forgot it was Christmas Eve. I should probably …" She knows that May will insist that she stay, and MJ feels bad for letting the date sneak up on her. She really wasn't trying to stay for the holidays. "Carrots? Really, Parker?"

He takes the bag of frozen vegetables out of her hands and sets it in the freezer. "What happened to Harry? I mean, Gwen mentioned a fight, but I just didn't …" he trails off, prompting her to finish before he sticks his foot in his mouth.

Gwen evidently didn't give him all the details, which MJ finds curious, given the nature of their relationship. She doubts that there are any other secrets she has told Gwen that haven't been immediately repeated to Peter. "We just need some space right now," she says carefully. She exhales the words out of her, and they feel like a lie. She doesn't want space from Harry. She wants to end it. She glances over at Peter, whose expression is a mix of bafflement and concern.

There is nothing waiting for her if she leaves Harry. But that doesn't mean she should stay. Right?

"I don't—I just—I didn't realize you and Aunt May were very close," says Peter, hedging around the real question she knows he is dying to ask, which is what the heck she is doing here.

MJ only offers him a shrug.

"You know you could have stayed with us," Peter recovers. "Gwen doesn't know you're here, does she?"

MJ shakes her head. "It's fine. Thank you," she says, even though the thought of staying in an apartment with Peter and Gwen in the three months leading up to their wedding feels like the single most unbearable thing in the world. "I just—I didn't want Harry to be able to find me."

Peter's eyebrows shoot up. "Why?"

"It's not—like that," MJ says, even though it is. She just doesn't want Peter thinking any less of her. It somehow seems important that he doesn't know about the episode, and she is grateful that Gwen decided not to tell him, or forgot to tell him in the first place.

"So … Harry doesn't know where you are, either."

"No," she says quietly.

There is a weighted silence between them then, because they are standing at an unmistakable crossroads in the conversation. Either Peter will press her further and ask for the whole truth, ask for details and understanding, or he will spare her the indignity and let this go. She doesn't know which she is hoping for. Either way, she thinks she will feel disappointed.

"Well," says Peter after a moment. "Are you going to help me make Christmas dinner or what?"

* * *

MJ ends up spending Christmas with May and Peter. It isn't a very big deal, and feels like any other day, except that there is a lot of baking and overeating and TV watching. Peter warms up to the idea of her being there and they all get a little bit tipsy off of the wine at dinner. She and May poke fun at him more than a few times, and he is too flustered by the alcohol to make his usual wry comments in return. Peter sleeps on the couch so that MJ can stay in his bed. Before she turns out the light she hears him say from the hallway, "Merry Christmas, Mary Jane."

She can't suppress the smile that bursts on her face.

A few days before New Year's she agrees to meet Harry in a coffee shop. He is grim-looking, his eyes red and tired, but he is decidedly sober. After they dump sugar packets and milk into their coffees in silence he starts to apologize, but she tells him not to.

"I don't want an apology," she says. "I want a promise. That nothing like that is every going to happen again."

She can see his shame, palpable and wrenching. He stares into his coffee cup, blinking, and she thinks for a moment that he might be holding back tears. If he is then he recollects himself to look up at her.

"I promise."

She has heard people make promises before, and she is usually the first person to mistrust them. But this is the exception. She can see how truly sorry that he is, and she can see the bare regret and honesty cracking in his face. She inspects him, taking a few seconds before she replies, and he mistakes this for disbelief.

"Please," he starts.

She shakes her head. "I believe you."

The coffee is scalding in her hands. He looks up at her warily, like he has a lot of things left to say, things he was expecting to beg and apologize for after this week apart. But she doesn't want that.

"Let's never talk about this again," she says.

"Mary Jane …" he says. It is evident that he doesn't believe this is the end of it. He is probably afraid she will bring this up in some passive-aggressive way for years if they don't work it out now, but she really and truly has no desire to dwell on it.

She offers him a small smile, hoping that it will convince him. "It's behind us." She takes a breath and adds, "And I've been thinking. You're right. About leaving the city for awhile … I think it would be good for us."

He doesn't smile back. "I don't want you to come with me unless you want to."

She slides her hand across the table. His hand is warm and the same as always, but somehow unfamiliar to her. She feels like she is comforting a stranger.

"I want to," she says. "I want to be with you always. I don't care where."

* * *

MJ moves back in with Harry, and they agree to move to Los Angeles. She thinks that Harry could use a little sun, and it would mean she didn't have to give up her acting aspirations. They start looking at apartments, deciding that they will leave after the new year, and start making arrangements to have their things packed away and shipped across the country.

It is good for them to have a project, something to work on and talk about together, because otherwise there isn't much for them to say.

They have a strange bout where they are with each other constantly, making love at the strangest times of day at the drop of a hat, as if they have something to prove to each other. They are searching for an intensity that they have lacked for months, and MJ can feel his frustration mirroring hers: it's like they are ghosts of themselves, chasing after something that used to be, so close on its heels that they can hardly stand it.

Harry stops taking the pills, and she likes to think that it helps a little. Sure, he is ornery, and quicker to irritate, but he is also more lively and present and like the Harry she first met years ago. In that week holed up in their apartment, she starts to recognize him again, and believe that Los Angeles is really the solution to all of their problems the same way other people turn to religion.

They don't tell Peter and Gwen about their plans to move, or at least MJ doesn't. Harry doesn't see or mention much of their friends, because he seems to be wrapped up in other matters. MJ just doesn't know how to tell them. She isn't used to being the one who does the leaving.

A few days into the New Year she gets a text from Peter out of the blue, asking her to meet him at a bridge where they all used to hang out in Central Park. She already knows she is going to meet him the instant that he texts her. It isn't a matter of whether or not she is going to go, but a matter of suppressing the quick beats of her heart, and the ugly, selfish thoughts that creep just under the surface of her consciousness.

She isn't doing anything wrong. She is meeting a friend, out in the open, on a Wednesday afternoon. An _engaged_ friend, who has no interest in her whatsoever. And Peter wouldn't ask her to meet like this unless it were important, and she figures it must have something to do with Gwen.

Only it doesn't. He looks anxious when she finds him there. She is surprised to see him right at the agreed upon time—in her experience, Peter has never been on time for anything in his life.

"What's up?" she asks, trying to sound casual and failing miserably.

There is no easing into it, no beating around the bush. He takes one quick glance around to make sure that they are alone, and then says, "You can't stay with Harry."

MJ stands there, stunned, trying not to let her heart swell with a sudden and faithless hope. "Why?" she asks.

Peter looks at her earnestly. "Gwen … Gwen told me about the other week—"

MJ shakes her head. "No, no, it's not …" She shakes her head harder, feeling embarrassed that he is bringing it up, and more embarrassed by the protest coming out of her mouth: "It was a one time thing—"

"I highly doubt that," Peter interrupts, sounding more assertive than she is used to. "And if Gwen had told me sooner, then I would have said something back at Christmas, even though I know it's not my place." She opens her mouth to protest, but he cuts her off and says, "But even if—even if that hadn't happened, which I—I can't say enough, MJ, that's not right, nobody should _ever_ treat you that way and I don't care what the excuse is—"

She feels her knees weakening. She isn't sure whether she is sick or thrilled by his concern for her. "Gwen must have told you what I did, too," she says.

"I don't care," says Peter. "It doesn't matter what you did, don't you understand? You don't deserve that. You never did."

It's the closest anyone outside of Gwen has come to acknowledging the struggles of her past, and certainly the first time somebody has ever vindicated her of them. She is so thrown by the nature of his words and the passion behind them that she is afraid to say anything, afraid that she will open her mouth and realize that she is dreaming, that she imagined this whole encounter to make herself feel important.

"I …" she starts. Her nerves feel raw, and her voice sounds louder in her head than it should.

"There's more to it," Peter says lowly. He is somewhere far away now, his eyes cast toward the ground, his expression dark. "There isn't much more I can say, but Harry is dangerous. He doesn't even know how much."

She can see his hands clenching on the railing of the bridge. His wedding ring gleams at her through the taut muscles of his fingers. She remembers the scraps of spandex in his closet and tries not to blurt a universe-shattering question that is suddenly screaming off the tip of her tongue.

"You have to leave him," Peter says again.

"You can't just ask me to do that, Peter," she says. "You can't just ask me to leave him after all this time not tell me why. Aren't the two of you friends?"

Peter doesn't answer that. Instead he says, "How long have we known each other, MJ?"

She stares at him, baffled. "I don't know," she says. "Six years? More, if you count high school, I guess."

"And you trust me."

She blinks up at him. His face is so close to hers. She feels so vulnerable and exposed on this bridge, where the intensity of his gaze is more overwhelming than the thousands of eyes she has ever had trailed on her on a stage.

"Yes," she says.

"Then please. For your own sake. Leave Harry."

The way he says it this time the motive becomes perfectly clear in her addled, lovesick brain. No. Peter doesn't want MJ, has never wanted MJ, so he must know something about Harry that she doesn't, something really terrible, and the combination of her disappointment and her fear suddenly makes her feel ill.

"Please, Mary Jane. For my peace of mind." The words are gentle and tempting. "I just want you to be safe."

It's something Harry has said to her a hundred times, but the words don't truly have any meaning until Peter says them. It doesn't take long to recognize the difference: she wants Peter to be safe, too. She cares about what happens to him, cares so desperately that she is suddenly terrified by the implications of his words, by the implication of those scraps in a shoebox above Peter's bed.

She reaches out and hugs him, fiercely. She has a sinking and ominous feeling that she cannot ignore, swelling in her gut, stealing her breath. She squeezes her eyes shut and memorizes this feeling—the sinewy muscles of his chest against her cheek, the strong beat of his heart slamming against her ear, the warmth and solidness of his arms around her shoulders.

She shudders as she draws away.

"It's going to be okay," Peter says. "You'll stay with us for a little while. It'll all get sorted out."

She looks up at him, her eyes filled with tears, and nods once. She can't tell him that she's still going to leave. She can't tell him that she is almost certain this is the last time she will see him. Because if any of her suspicions are even partially true, he could be dead long before a March wedding.

"Thank you, Peter." Her eyes are streaming. Standing a foot away from him, she suddenly feels smaller and more alone than she ever has. "I mean it."

It's the closest she can come to good-bye.

* * *

The next day Harry is out of town for business, and Peter knows this, so she has one more day before Peter realizes that she didn't listen. She hopes to be on the plane to Los Angeles by then; in the meantime, she tells Gwen that if she isn't going to have a bachelorette party, she is at least going to have one last hurrah drinking wine on the roof of their old apartment building like they did in the good old days.

They look ridiculous, out there in the frigid cold, wrapped in giant marshmallow-sized jackets and oversized hats and scarves with two bottles of cheap wine sitting between their lawn chairs. They don't bother with glasses. Gwen is stiff and unsure about the whole idea when they start out but halfway through their first bottle she loosens up a bit, and starts to laugh—then she lets out a full-on snort, the kind she hasn't heard from Gwen in so long that MJ forgets to make fun of her the way that she used to.

They talk about the past for a long time. Gwen recounts all the old familiar tales of the shenanigans she and her brothers got into growing up, the kind of stories that MJ loves and hangs on every word of, wishing she had siblings of her own. MJ remembers some of her first gigs, at the laughable outfits and horrible lines she was willing to spout off for thirty-five bucks. They talk about Richard, the boyfriend that they both had back-to-back, making derisive jokes about the severe and apparently very fertile woman he ended up marrying and having six children with, starting the year that he broke up with MJ (not necessarily on purpose).

Gwen talks about her father—her real champion, her childhood hero. She talks about him as he was, the facts plain and admirable, without any trace of tears. Time may never heal those wounds, but it is the first MJ has ever seen her talk about her father so reverently without being overcome by the loss of him.

"He didn't want me to be with Peter," she says, and this is the point in the night when Gwen's voice starts to warble, and MJ can hear the wine in it.

This is news to MJ. "I didn't even know they ever met."

Gwen nods slowly and unselfconsciously. The bottle in her hands is nearly empty. "In high school Peter came over for dinner."

"He must not have known Peter that well. Or had the wrong impression."

Gwen laughs, a full belly laugh, about something that has flown right over MJ's head. "He knew Peter," she says once she stops. "He told him to stay away from me. He made him promise."

MJ's thoughts have been thick and somewhat dulled up until this point, but Gwen's admission cuts through them like a knife. "Wait—in _high _school?"

"I loved him so much." There is a tear streaking down Gwen's cheek, but she doesn't seem to notice. "I couldn't stand it, MJ. I thought I would die. For two years—for two years, we barely even spoke, and he was just _there_, living across the hall. He was everywhere. He was so close to me but so determined to keep that _stupid_ promise."

MJ has a hundred questions she wants to ask, but somehow manages to stop herself. She is scared to call it to Gwen's attention, that she is revealing something she has never revealed before, because then she might stop.

"And I tried so hard. To get over him, I mean. I did everything I could, I really did," she says, and MJ is not sure who she is trying to convince. "But there has never been anybody else. I can't—I can't imagine living without him. It wouldn't mean anything, without him."

MJ lets the words sink in to her addled, buzzing brain. She had always considered Peter and Gwen special, had always thought it was remarkable how far they went back, and how devoted they were to each other. But she sees now that she really didn't have a clue. Peter was claimed for Gwen from the start—this has been set in stone long before MJ even came into the picture, long before she even knew Peter's name.

She closes her eyes in the chill of the night. "You never said a word in college," MJ says, but not in accusation.

Gwen nods. "I never said a word to anybody," she says, and it sounds like an apology. MJ can't blame her, really, because there are things she will never tell Gwen herself.

If there is ever a time to ask, it's right now. Gwen would never betray Peter, but she is just drunk enough that she might betray herself. If MJ just throws it out there, unexpected and blunt, she doubts that Gwen would be able to recover herself before MJ saw the truth in her eyes.

"Is Peter—"

"I think he'd understand," Gwen says, without hearing MJ speak.

MJ's feels her pulse throbbing in her limbs, a tremor of relief flooding through her. She is glad Gwen interrupted her. She doesn't want to know.

"Who? Peter?" asks MJ.

"No. My father," Gwen elaborates, and MJ remembers that Gwen left that thought unfinished. "For a long time I—I had to learn to live with it, too. Doing something he didn't want for me. But I have to think—that if he saw us now, that if he understood how much we meant to each other, so much more than some stupid high school romance—I have to think he would change his mind."

MJ nods in agreement. "I still don't understand why he wouldn't like Peter."

Gwen lets out an amused puff of air. "You used to hate him, too."

"He almost failed us in English," she reminds Gwen, "that's different." She stretches out lazily, wiggling her toes to get some warmth back in them. "I knew Peter was a good guy, even if he annoyed me to no end."

Gwen suddenly turns to her, a sheepish smile on her face. "I was so convinced he liked you. I was going to bite his head off. I mean, I know it was all in my mind, but for a while we weren't talking and he was still talking to you and I seriously might have hated you both."

MJ isn't sure what to make of this. It seems awfully tragic to her in a personal way, the feeling-sorry-for-herself way. She also doubts that Peter ever had any ideas about her, but it is nice to think somebody could have imagined them together, even just once. MJ feels a wistful kind of yearning for the girl she was back then—how she took those moments with Peter for granted, how she took _everything_ for granted, their youth and their time and their unmade plans—how could she ever predict that things would turn out like this?

"That's funny," MJ says tonelessly, because she is supposed to.

Gwen giggles. "Yeah. God, I thought I was so old back then. And smart."

"You were," says MJ. "You always have been."

Gwen shakes her head. "I've done some pretty stupid things."

MJ doesn't have to admit the same, because they both already know. She wonders what Gwen is talking about, but the way Gwen lets the words hang there it is clear that she isn't looking for MJ to pry.

"Marrying Peter won't be one of them," she adds, laughing again.

MJ wonders why Gwen seems a lot tipsier than she is, when they have been drinking the same amount or close to it all night. Gwen seems euphoric, and suddenly a lot more willing to say things that she has held to her chest for years. But MJ feels the same as she always has, without even a mild buzz to cushion the overload of information slamming against her like a wall.

"Do you think you'll stay in New York forever?" asks MJ, her mind on tomorrow's evening flight to California.

Gwen purses her lips, considering this. "Not for a while," she says. "With my job. And Peter … Peter's job. Keeping us here."

MJ nods.

"The city isn't ideal, but my parents raised four kids here just fine," says Gwen.

It's the first time Gwen has ever voluntarily brought up the idea of having children with Peter. The thought of it makes her throat tight with sadness. She pictures a miniature version of Peter, with Gwen's wide eyes Peter's thoughtful expressions, scrawny and excitable and curious about everything around him. For some reason MJ is certain that the first one that they'll have is a boy, and it's almost a relief. For some reason if it were a girl, a little girl who looked a lot like Gwen, it would be that much harder to bear.

If that child ever exists, MJ will be like an aunt to him. She will watch over him, send him birthday presents, give him advice about girls and tell him stories about his parents in the good old days. She would love that child no matter what. But she already knows she would never look at him without an excruciating regret for what might have been.

"How many kids do you think you'll have?"

MJ has no idea what possesses her to ask this. Whatever answer Gwen gives will only make it all the worse.

Sure enough, Gwen gives a shy and happy shrug. "I think two," she says, "or three, maybe. I like the idea of a big family. And Peter didn't like growing up by himself."

MJ nods. She knows that feeling well. It's a conversation she has never had with Peter herself, but one that they might have, if they'd ever had a chance.

MJ takes another hefty sip of wine, wishing it would do something for her and knowing that it won't.

"I know every girl says this," says Gwen, her voice kind of dreamy and far away. "But I'm just—I'm so happy to be with him. After all this time, after all the drama and the heartache and—and everything," she says, shaking her head, deciding not to elaborate. She turns to MJ, her expression so engaging and earnest that it is hard for MJ to look back. "I just feel like I'm the luckiest girl in the world."

She turns away then, staring up at the sky, and this is the image of Gwen that is burned in the back of MJ's mind for eternity. Gwen, at twenty-six, with a ring on her finger and a sweet little smile arched up at the moon. She is so captivating and alive in that moment that it seems impossible that anything bad could ever happen to her, that anything bad already had. She is so radiant in her happiness that she outshines the stars. She seems so certain, so sure, so beautiful and full of grace, everything that MJ will never be.

MJ sets her arm on Gwen's, and squeezes her hand. "I'm so happy for you."

And she is. Gwen deserves this, and more. Gwen has worked hard, and played by the rules, and stayed above the fray. Gwen has cared more fiercely and more loyally for the people around her than anyone MJ knows, and always comes up from defeat stronger than she was before. MJ cannot begrudge Gwen her happiness, and she never could.

Suddenly Gwen shivers. "I'm cold," she says. "Let's go back inside."

MJ starts collecting the chair and the bottles. Gwen leans down to help her and says, "It's late. You should stay over tonight."

Gwen must know that Peter has offered for MJ to stay permanently again—in fact, there is no doubt in her mind that this was Gwen's idea in the first place—but for some reason they are hedging around the topic tonight, which MJ appreciates, since it is supposed to be a celebration, after all.

But MJ is afraid if she stays tonight she will lose her resolve to leave. Instead she hugs Gwen tight, and kisses her on the cheek.

"I better head back to my apartment," she says. To try and alleviate some of the tension, she wiggles her eyebrows and says, "You two could use some alone time, I'm sure."

Gwen grins and looks embarrassed, but doesn't deny it. As they march down the stairwell, Gwen turns to her, her cheeks flushed from the cold and the wine, and says, "I'm really glad we did this. I've missed you. Isn't that strange? We see each other all the time, but …"

MJ nods. She knows perfectly what Gwen means.

"Let's get lunch tomorrow. At that place with the umbrellas in the drinks. Remember how we used to go there all the time?"

MJ will be boarding a plane by then. "That's a great idea. Next week would be better," she answers, without missing a beat.

Gwen stops at the twenty-eighth floor, and steps out into the hall. MJ trails after her to hit the down button on the elevator and Gwen lingers for a moment, waiting for it to arrive. Gwen makes a few more drunk and happy bits of conversation, laughing about something Peter did that morning, laughing about the puffed up Renaissance sleeves of one of the wedding dresses she tried on. She is so enthusiastic and bright that she looks like a child, wrapped up in her enormous winter coat, talking about everything and anything that comes to mind.

It probably only takes a minute for the elevator to arrive, but when MJ looks back on it, it lasts a lifetime. She wishes she had been paying closer attention to everything Gwen had said. None of it was all that important at the time, and if it had been any other day, MJ doubts she ever would have thought twice about her inattention. But by the time the elevator doors swung open, MJ was feeling guilty and restless and trying not to show how much she was ready to leave.

"Be safe," says Gwen. "Text me when you get home!"

Then Gwen waves at her as the elevator doors shut, and MJ misses it, waiting to wave back just a moment too late. The elevator creaks down to the ground floor and MJ wastes no time leaving the apartment building, hitting the street with an imbalanced kind of bravery, determined not to look back.

She knows she is being a bad friend. But in her mind it is easy to justify this, her leaving the city without saying a word: she may be a bad friend, but if she stayed she would be a terrible one. There is nothing she can do to quit Peter Parker, nothing short of flying three thousand miles away. A lump forms in her throat as she thinks about tomorrow, how the slate will be wiped clean, how everything she has ever known and worked for has the potential to slip through the cracks and count for nothing. She just has to believe her uncertainty and fear is worth the relief of leaving New York behind her.

She only hopes that someday Gwen understands.


	11. Chapter 11

**Perpendicular**

MJ wakes up to a bare apartment the next morning. She checks the clock, knowing Harry's flight from his business trip will arrive in about a half an hour. She offered to just meet him at the airport with all their bags, but he said he wanted to come back to the city for an early lunch, and to say good-bye to the apartment. MJ thinks he is being overly sentimental, but she doesn't say so, even though she would rather just leave now without any big fuss.

She doesn't bother making the bed, even though Harry hates it when she leaves it a mess. She walks through the empty space of their living room and glances at the window, at their spectacular skyline view. She doesn't linger and stare at it. Unlike Harry, this never truly belonged to her, and it is easy to give it back.

She grabs her purse, deciding to go for a walk around the block, and maybe buy some gum for the flight. It's embarrassing, but MJ hasn't been on a plane in more than twenty years, and she isn't really sure what to expect. She meant to ask Gwen about it, because she doesn't want to ask Harry, who will look at her with those condescending, pitying eyes that he sometimes gets whenever she confesses to some essential gap in her existence.

A fleet of police cars and an ambulance whiz past as MJ hits the curb. She hesitates for a moment, watching them go, but rationalizes that if the cops are out, Spiderman must have taken care of it by now.

She reaches for her phone and considers texting Peter. She thumbs at the screen, wiping off some imaginary dirt, but decides not to. She stares out into the distance, watching the cars all take a sharp turn to the left, listening as the wail of the sirens grows lower and further away until it disappears.

About halfway to the convenience store she suddenly feels this strange, dissociative feeling overcome her, as if she is walking in somebody else's boots, doing somebody else's errands. There is nobody around her who expects her to say or do anything, but she suddenly has this sinking, horrible sensation, like she used to get when she thought she had forgotten her lines.

What is she _thinking?_ Packing up and moving to Los Angeles—because of a _boy?_ The wrong one, at that. Because if she's being honest with herself, she is doing this for Peter, not for Harry. She is doing this to get away, not to head toward something better.

This isn't right, suddenly none of it is. She feels her heart start to pound against her chest with an abrupt, acute panic. She has no idea what she is doing. It's like she has been sprinting at top speed to find a happy ending, and didn't see the cliff until she had soared right over the edge.

She will never marry Harry. She can't. She doesn't want to be with him like that, she shouldn't be with him now and she certainly shouldn't be getting on a plane and leaving everything behind with him. What would her life be like, with Harry at the center of her universe, the only part of her past to hold on to? She considers it for the first time, waking up _every single morning_ to his face, falling asleep every night to the sound of his snores, for the _rest of her life_.

She stops short on the sidewalk. She has passed the convenience store without realizing it. She turns around, the noise of the city like a funnel around her.

She'll tell him when he gets here. It will be hard. Maybe one of the hardest things she has ever had to do. But she owes him that, at the very least—a conversation, an explanation, an apology. When she was younger she left her childhood home in a blaze of indignation of resentment, blaming everyone around her for her misery, because it was the easy thing to do. But Harry has done nothing wrong except love her, flaws and all.

Full of resolve and an eerie calm, she pulls her phone back out and dials Harry's number. She'll meet him some place public. She is just working out where when he picks up the phone.

"Oh, my god." Harry's voice is thick and so unrecognizable that she almost pulls the phone away from her ear to check the number. "Mary Jane. Mary Jane."

It sounds like he has been crying, that he still is. The way he is saying her name sounds like a drowning man clinging to the oar of a lifeboat. She walks to the side of a shop window, plugging her finger into her other ear against the sound of the traffic and the clamor of pedestrians.

"Harry?" she says.

The panic hasn't fully set in yet. Instead it is a boding, stealthy kind of dread. The feeling of falling before she hits the ground, the feeling of watching something terrible from a distance happen and knowing she can't stop it. She remembers an instance of watching her father slug his hand through the wall—he had misaimed and plunged it through the window, but for those few paralyzing milliseconds his arm was in motion, there was nothing she could say, nothing she could do to warn him. He had turned to her after it happened, his arm a mass of blood, his expression at once vulnerable and surprised.

She is holding her breath, waiting for him to speak. She holds on to one desperate hope that there is a bad connection, and she imagined the despair in his voice. A moment later those hopes are dashed.

"You haven't heard," he says. She hears him gasp into the phone. No. He is crying. "Oh, god."

Now there is only fear, and impatience. She cannot stand his weakness. She needs to know whatever it is, she needs to know _now_.

"Heard what?" she demands, her voice shrill.

Her throat is so tight she is afraid she'll never breathe again, but she is breathing, heaving in a lungful of air as she waits for him to upend her world. She already knows what he is going to say before he says it: he is going to tell her that Peter is dead. It is the only reason he could be crying like this, the only thing that would reduce him to such hysterics so quickly. Harry is going to tell her the terrible thing that she has feared for the past few weeks, confirm the awful truth: that Peter has been living a double life, and now both of them are over.

She shuts her eyes, waiting for the news, but it doesn't come. Instead Harry is muttering to himself, words that MJ can't understand. She feels a rush of blood in her veins, accompanying her rage at him. He can't do this to her. She feels her fingernails digging into her palms, feels her knees lock and her jaw tighten.

"_Harry_," she snaps. "Heard _what?_"

It still takes him a moment to compose himself, and even when he speaks it's a struggle to understand him.

"It's—it's Gwen," says Harry.

She can't have heard him correctly. Her stomach wrenches and she tips forward in shock, the image of Gwen's face last night bursting into her mind, fresh with a new horror.

"Gwen … she …"

MJ is shaking her head before he even finishes. She says the word _no_, and then says it again, trying to interrupt him, because he has to be wrong, but there is no noise coming out of her mouth.

"She's dead, Mary Jane. The Goblin—I just heard."

For a long time MJ stands there with the phone pressed so hard against her ear that she can feel the heat of it radiating against her cheek. She longs for two minutes ago, when everything felt like a dream, because now everything seems too real: the colors sharper, the noises closer, as if everything is trying to suffocate her with its aliveness.

"When?" she hears herself ask.

"I don't know," Harry says. "I just landed. Maybe an hour ago. Mary Jane—"

The phone slips out of her hand and hits the sidewalk, with enough force to pop out the battery. She leaves it there. She has this sudden sensation that she needs to throw up, but instead she walks, and then she runs.

Harry has been wrong before. She needs to find a television, or a computer, something to confirm that this has happened, but even then she doesn't think she'll believe it, short of seeing Gwen's lifeless body. No. _No_. She shudders, so revolted by the thought that she again has to fight the urge to wretch. She doesn't want to hear another word of it, but at the same time she needs it to be real and absolute for it to sink in. She needs to know how this happened, needs to know where and how and _why_, but even if she has all the answers it will never fix this horrible chasm spreading in her chest.

They were so stupid, all four of them. So astronomically and unforgivably stupid. They all thought they were invincible. They stayed here long after everyone they knew had left the city for some place safer. This wasn't a horrible and impossible coincidence—it was an inevitability.

How could she have planned to leave without taking Gwen with her? How could she have not even _tried? _When Peter and Gwen were willing to do anything for her, even let her move back in when they thought she was in danger—how could she not have done them the same favor, how could she not have even asked if Gwen would come too? They may not have left yet, but at the very least Gwen would be some place else, somewhere distant from wherever she had been killed, somewhere with MJ—

"Oh," MJ says to herself, her stride slowing. She clutches at her chest, remembering last night in full force.

_Let's get lunch tomorrow,_ Gwen had said. _Remember how we used to go there all the time?_

MJ doesn't even know how to contain the overwhelming wave of shame and grief. She is so overcome by it that it is all she can do to put one foot in front of the other, while it feels like every muscle is tight and restricted and working against her. She could have prevented this. There are so many ways she could have stopped this from happening, but she had been selfish, she had been callous and thoughtless and cruel. She had practically asked for this to happen, dared the universe to punish her for her wrongs.

She starts to run again, consciously sprinting toward the old apartment, as if her speed and the pain of the air shredding her lungs and the effort she is putting in far too late could do anything to change the way things are. She is slammed with the thought of that child she imagined, the miniature Peter, the one with Gwen's eyes and smart sense of humor, the one that she will never meet.

It is her fault. She willed this into nonexistence.

She turns so sharply on corner and flings herself into the street so fast that several cars slam their brakes and lay on their horns, barely avoiding an accident. She doesn't look back. Her feet fly under the pavement with impossible speed, because she doesn't care what happens to her—it is the run of the damned, the run of somebody with nothing left to lose.

She only stops to wait for the elevator in the lobby. She has just enough presence of mind left to know that it will take much longer to climb twenty-eight stories than it will to wait. Still, she is agitated, overdrawn, incapable of this stillness. Her body reacts to the sudden stop with protest, her vision swarming, her pulse racing. She is slick and clammy with sweat even in the January chill.

When the elevator doors spit her out she tears down the hallway and tries to jerk the doorknob open. It's locked. She suddenly has a nonsensical urge to try and shove it down, and for a split second she is so far gone that she almost does. Then she reaches into her purse, locating the keys in an instant.

Her hands are shaking so badly she can't get them into the lock. She has this sudden unhelpful, unappreciated memory of Gwen mentioning that her father taught her to kick a door open. MJ squeezes her eyes shut, determined to focus when she opens them.

The key slides in and the door bursts open. She walks in without announcing herself, the door slamming shut behind her, and for a paralyzing moment she truly believes she is alone.

Then she looks into the bedroom, and sees Peter's eyes snap up to meet hers.

He is almost unrecognizable. There is a wildness in his eyes that terrifies her, takes her breath away. He appears unharmed, wearing ordinary street clothes, his hair askew in its usual way, but despite all this he doesn't look like a person to her. He looks consumed, his expression twisted into something ugly, his posture like a cornered and angry animal.

She is so stricken by him that she can only stare. And then it hits her: she sees his grief, and it is the final blow. It is the confirmation. Gwen is really, truly gone.

Her shoulders spasm first and she hears a low and mournful noise escape her throat, a sound resonates from some dark place she has never tapped into before. She reaches out and finds a kitchen chair, half-sinking into it, her arms barely propping her up. She can't look away from him. He is breathing hard, and she has the sense that he was doing something before she arrived, something that he doesn't want her to see, because he is frozen, too.

Then she can't see him anymore, her eyes streaming, her body pitching forward with uncontrollable sobs. She tries not to breathe, tries for Peter's sake to hold it in, but it only makes it worse. She cannot be strong for him. She cannot be strong for anyone.

She hears the distinct click of the doorknob. She swipes at her eyes, trying desperately to halt her sobs for even a moment to regain some composure, and sees Peter's back turned to her, walking out the front door.

"Where are you going?" she asks.

She is bawling and incoherent. She doubts he caught a word of what she has said, but he pauses, just for a second. His head turns so slightly that she can't even see his face. Then he takes a step forward, one cold and unremorseful step, and shuts the door behind him.

She feels herself hovering in the seconds that follow, in a crippling and catastrophic disbelief. She is so devastated that she cannot even process his departure. She keeps hearing the door slam, over and over again, and it feels like no matter how much time passes she will always be in this terrible moment, knowing that the two people who have truly mattered to more than anyone her are both _gone_.

A dry sob escapes her. The tears stop flowing but she cannot calm the rest of her body, which seems to be absorbing the blows in mismatched stages, her grief unable to sync up into one singular and terrible feeling—there is too much hurt, too much guilt, too much regret, that she doesn't know how to feel them all at once.

She sinks to the floor, her knees hitting the hard surface, and lets her body sag all the way to the ground. She presses her cheek against the cool tile of the kitchen floor, her eyes wide open, staring into nothing. She wants to close her eyes and shrink into a ball but she can't. She is paralyzed here, the same way she was when she was little and had night terrors that always revolved around the same theme: she'd be running, running from something big and bad and scary, and then suddenly her legs would only pump air and the rest of her body wouldn't move as she felt the ominous thing grow closer and closer until she woke up screaming.

She is not deluded enough to think she can wake up from this, but she would trade anything if she could. There is no question in her mind that she would trade her own life for Gwen's, maybe even trade a perfect stranger's without hesitating.

It should be MJ. Of the four of them, MJ is the stupidest, the most inessential. Harry and Gwen and Peter—they had always been grown up and sensible, useful to society in a way that she never would be. They were all full of ambition and ideas that would change the world and help people, and MJ has only ever wanted frivolous, inconsequential things like fame and attention. If it had to be someone, it should have been _her_.

She has never felt so miserable for being alive. Her heart is thundering in her ears, reminding her of it with every beat, that she is here and Gwen is not. There is a dark and ugly part of her that lets her mind wander to the fire escape, to the twenty-eight story drop she has only ever contemplated when the noise of the traffic reached their tiny apartment. She could get up right now, quietly and quickly. Nobody would know until it was too late, and then she wouldn't have to tolerate even one more excruciating second of this burden she will bear for the rest of her life.

It is only a thought. She squeezes her eyes shut. She may be weak and pathetic and selfish enough to think about the simplicity of ending her life, but she could never go through with it.

She suddenly worries about Peter, and his abrupt exit. Where is he? Why does she have the awful sense that whatever he is doing, wherever he has gone, he is putting himself into serious danger? She thought at first that he only left to be alone, but when she thinks about it, there was purpose in his stride. Not just purpose, but tight, poorly-hidden rage. She is suddenly afraid that Peter is out seeking his own brand of suicide, by trying to confront the Goblin and avenge Gwen's death.

This realization is followed abruptly by another one: there is nothing she can do. She can't change his mind or tell him to stay; she has never had that kind of power over him, and never will. A single tear drips off the bridge of her nose and thuds onto the tiles.

It is impossible in this moment to see how anything could be worth living for after this. She has spent years tagging along behind Gwen and Peter, a sad little planet in their orbit, and without them she has no way to define herself. MJ knows that pain is supposed to fade with time, because she has experienced all sorts of heartaches in her life, and has overcome them in her own misguided ways. But this—this isn't the kind of grief that will make her a stronger person. This is the kind of grief that will eliminate her, cancel her out until there is nothing left.

She closes her eyes, exhaustion creeping into her bones. She isn't trying to fall asleep, thinking that she doesn't deserve even the small comfort of a temporary escape, but after a few minutes her breathing evens out and she finds herself slipping into an unintentional, forgiving darkness.

* * *

When she wakes up, the light is dim in the apartment. The sun is just starting to set. Every limb in her body aches and her throat is so dry that she can't even swallow. She hoists herself up to her feet, her thirst so demanding that it takes all of her focus and attention to open a cabinet, wrap her shaking hands around a glass and fill it with water from the tap.

The first gulp of cold water is overpowering in its relief. She feels her senses stirring back into action, and she drinks and drinks until there is nothing left in the glass and she is gasping for air.

It is just enough to restore her back into her grief. The day's events slam into her consciousness with full force, and she sets the glass down, feeling tears well up in her eyes again. She doesn't want to be here, she doesn't want to be in her own skin. Everything feels foreign and scary and impossibly out of her control. The shadows cast across the apartment have a menacing edge to them, the noises of the city seem aggressive and cruel.

She grabs her purse. She can't be here anymore. She heads for the door, and finds that the deadbolt is locked; somebody has been here. She hazards a glance into the bedroom but it is empty.

It isn't worth dwelling on. She unbolts it and heads out of the apartment. One of their neighbors walks out at the same time, texting someone on his phone, waiting for the elevator with MJ as he scowls into the screen.

How bizarre that this day is unimportant to him. That there are people in the world living their lives the same way they always have, when from this day forward MJ's life will never be the same. She wants to reach out to him somehow, to say something and connect to a person outside of her own horror, but all she can think of to say is, "What's the cheapest way to get to JFK from here?"

The man is startled that she is addressing him, looking around to see if she meant to talk to somebody else.

"Uh," he says, and then he pauses, taking her in for a moment. She is wearing the same jeans and coat from this morning, but judging from the uncertainty in his expression she figures the rest of her must look pretty grim. "There's a bus that leaves from Penn Station, I think."

She nods and thanks him.

It's starting to get even colder outside. MJ opens her purse, and finds her wallet. She doesn't have any cash on her, or a phone for that matter, but she knows how to get to the station from here. She ducks her head down and moves forward, not making eye contact with anyone, walking as quickly as she can.

She finds an ATM and withdraws enough cash for the bus fare. The woman who sits next to her has a screaming baby and tries to make conversation with her, but MJ just stares out the window, watching Manhattan crawl by with the traffic. She wants to ask what time it is, but then it strikes her how little it matters now, because she has nowhere to be and nobody that she wants to be accountable to. It almost feels in this moment like the laws of space and time don't apply to her. That she can ignore the friendly, pudgy woman next to her, and she can ignore hour of the day, because she doesn't exist in this same plane with everybody else anymore.

When they arrive at the terminal MJ picks an airline indiscriminately, and walks up to the counter.

"What's the next flight leaving here?" she asks.

The woman behind the counter looks at her suspiciously. It doesn't occur to MJ that she might be a red flag for airport security until this moment, because she hasn't been on an airplane for so long. She glances up and sees a flight for Chicago first on the list.

"I meant to ask, when's the next flight that leaves for Chicago," she amends.

If the woman has noticed MJ's poor cover-up, she is too tired to do anything about it. "Seven o'clock," says the woman. "But you're going to have a hard time making it through security in time."

She gives MJ a price and MJ hands over her credit card, knowing and not caring that she doesn't have the money to pay it off this month. MJ walks calmly through the security gate, slipping off her boots, letting them root through her bags. The airport is huge but she somehow manages to follow the signs to her gate, listening the sound of a person on the speakers say that it's the final boarding call.

A few gates away, she picks up the pace, when she sees the monitors on the televisions above her flicker to an all too familiar sight: it's a picture of Gwen. Not just any picture, but her high school graduation picture, the one that her mother has framed and set in the foyer of the family apartment. MJ's heart constricts and she stops short at the sight of it, remembering for the first time with sudden clarity the last day of high school, when she offered her yearbook to Gwen for them to swap signatures.

They weren't really friends in high school, but MJ had wanted to get as many signatures as she could, and Gwen was polite as ever. MJ remembers making small talk about how they were both going to Empire State for college, and how they should totally hang out when they got there, but back then she hadn't really meant anything by it. MJ figured she would be in the theater department, and that Gwen would be someplace else with all the other nerds, and that they might pass each other on the street and wave from time to time.

And maybe it would have turned out that way, if they hadn't both gotten lost on the first day of classes, holding outdated maps that had been handed to them at orientation by mistake.

"If you guys are looking for English building, it's been moved," one of the upperclassmen explained, pointing on the map to a building at least a mile away.

MJ had gawked in disbelief, and Gwen had let out a disappointed sigh and said, "Well, we're never going to make it in time for a two o'clock class." She checked her watch, as if to confirm it, and added, "I can't believe we already blew it on the first day."

"Great first impression," said MJ, who hadn't really cared so much about British Lit anyway.

Gwen folded up the map and slid it neatly into her purse. "Well. Do you want to grab coffee or something? If you've got nothing better to do."

MJ had stayed up the night before practicing a monologue and was so desperate for a nap that she almost said no. But she ended up following Gwen to some little corner shop and splitting a croissant with her, and then gradually they made it a weekly thing, and then started hanging out outside of that, too. MJ remembers how they had virtually nothing in common in the beginning, but that seemed to work for them, maybe because they provided each other a much-needed escape from their own lives: it was comforting for MJ to be around Gwen, so solid and sure in her decisions and career path when her own was so unpredictable, and she likes to think that maybe Gwen got a kick out of her theater stories too.

They probably weren't all that close until sophomore or junior year. It's all so long ago that MJ couldn't pinpoint the time when they became so inseparable, she just knows that it happened sometime after Gwen started dating Peter. She had seemed a lot more happy and accessible after that. Knowing the story behind it, it makes more sense to MJ now.

"Final boarding call for Flight 367, service to Chicago."

She tears her eyes away from the screen, but Gwen's image has long since been replaced by old footage of the Goblin terrorizing the city. Still, it is burned in the back of her brain, all she can see as she walks the ramp into the plane doors: Gwen, at seventeen years old, her smile shy and earnest, her blonde hair tucked neatly into a navy blue headband and her cheeks glowing with promise.

"Ma'am? You don't have any bags to fit into the overhead bin?"

MJ shakes her head no, and finds the last unassigned seat on the plane, in between two heavyset men who seem annoyed by her presence. Within a minute of sitting down she hears the plane whirr angrily under their feet. She has almost no memory of this unholy noise, and wonders if all planes sound like this as they're getting ready for take off, but when she looks around nobody seems fazed in the least.

She shuts her eyes for a brief moment as the plane starts to move forward on the runway. She imagines herself as a little girl on that plane ride she took, sitting between her parents, clicking and unclicking the latch for the tray table in front of her and relishing the treat of the magic markers her mother had stowed away for her in her carry on.

It seems impossible, that she could ever have been that simple, that innocent. MJ searches for some piece of that little girl inside of her, any shred that might remain, but there is nothing. She cannot be salvaged. She cannot be saved.

She opens her eyes just as the plane lurches forward and leaves the runway. The engine roars in her ears, the pressure jerks her back into the seat, and the plane climbs quickly up to death-defying heights, but all MJ feels as she clutches the seat handles is a crushing and pitiful relief.


	12. Chapter 12

**Perpendicular**

A year and a half after Gwen's death, MJ is sitting on the hardwood floor of a bare apartment, folding her clean shirts into neat little squares and setting them into a suitcase. Outside the July sun is burning through the windows. MJ glances out at the Chicago skyline, resolutely clicking the suitcase shut.

"That's the last of it, then?"

Jackie, a slim, curly-haired public relations worker, pokes her head in from the kitchen, a spoonful of yogurt hovering from her mouth.

MJ nods solemnly. "That's it."

"When does your flight leave?"

"Five o'clock."

Jackie offers her a small smile. "Well," she says. "Don't forget about us when you're famous."

MJ tries to smile back. "I won't," she promises, hoisting the suitcase up and rolling it to the door with her two others. She stands at the door for a second, feeling a faint trepidation in the threshold. She turns back to face the apartment, staring at the kitchen and the small living room and the four bedrooms that flank it, one of which used to be hers. Her other roommates are at work; she said her good-byes to them last night, short and sweet.

"I'm leaving my key on the counter," MJ says.

Jackie nods at her. It's the kind of moment where girls usually lean in for a hug or tell each other how much they'll be missed, but MJ turns back to the door before she can.

"Good luck," Jackie calls.

"Thanks."

MJ is going to need it.

* * *

She hasn't been on a plane since she left New York, and unfortunately this one is bound straight back. She feels no significant emotions this time as the plane leaves the runway. It's been a long time since she has felt much of anything at all.

"Can I get you anything to drink, miss?"

MJ shakes her head without looking up.

She has known for a month now that she would have to relocate to New York, but it was an easy thing for her to ignore. Even when their rehearsal schedules doubled and the crew started packing away the set and a team of people started organizing living situations for her and all the other performers, MJ only acknowledged the move with vague comments about how exciting it was, and how she was looking forward to it.

The truth is, MJ can't bear the idea of coming back. She has spent the last year and a half in a cocoon, completely separate from the mess that she left behind, wrapped in her own private misery and self-loathing.

The only solace she took from leaving was her anonymity. For the first few months in Chicago she kept her head down and her mouth shut. She found an apartment the day after she flew in, subletting without the landlord's consent, which is how she ended up living with three perfect strangers that even now she only knew the names of, and not much else. She barely spoke to anybody, outside of her diner job. She didn't make small talk, or smile at anybody, or give any other sort of invitation for anyone to get to know her.

She told herself that it had to be that way, so that nobody could find her. She knew that Harry would be looking. She left the wrong way, left without saying a word. He probably thought something terrible had happened to her, and even though she wrestled the guilt from that for quite some time, she couldn't bring herself to contact him in fear that he might try to suck her back into his world.

But even without the fear of being discovered, MJ didn't have it in her to be herself anymore. It was a struggle in those first few weeks to even get out of bed in the morning. She picked up hours at work whenever she could, working the worst shifts, the dead weekday mornings and the middle of the night, just to avoid being alone with her thoughts. She ignored her roommates for the most part, during the little time she was home. She didn't want to be friends with them. It wasn't anything personal. She just didn't want to be friends with anyone.

"You're starting to get customer complaints," her manager said to her at one point. "Would it kill you to be a little nicer to people?"

MJ had only stared at him. "I'm polite," she said in defense of herself.

"And where's your name tag?" he added, pointing at her apron in irritation.

MJ pursed her lips and lied. "I lost it."

"Well, go in the back and make a new one."

MJ went to the back and typed the name "Jane" into the label printer. Nobody noticed the difference when she walked out. She was so quiet around her co-workers that nobody had bothered to learn her name. "Jane" stuck easily, and provided yet another comfortable pad of dissociative security, giving her one more inch of distance further away from the girl she left behind.

For a long time, nothing changed. Just long days of work chased by nights of restless, dream-ridden sleep. She learned from an article in Empire State's newsletter how Gwen died, and over and over again she dreamed of Gwen's body, bent and hovering from a strand of web, her eyes vacant with death. Sometimes in the dreams she could reach out, as if her arms had enough strength to snatch Gwen out of the air.

The reports claimed that Gwen's neck had snapped, resulting in her death. MJ finds herself morbidly stuck on the otherwise threadbare explanation, and there are dark thoughts, every so often, that seep in when she isn't expecting them. It's always in the slow moments: when she is in the shower, or wiping down tables at the diner, or walking home at the end of the day. Whenever she has time to think her mind wanders to the scene that must have happened on that bridge that day: the article claimed that the Goblin had flung Gwen off of a bridge, and that Spiderman had flung a web to save her, only to find that she was already dead.

MJ thought nothing of it for the first few weeks, still too consumed by her grief to allow room for other thoughts outside of it. But the more time that passed the more she started to wonder: had Gwen been dead before the Goblin flung her off the bridge?—or is it possible—and MJ hates herself for thinking it, _hates_ herself—but is it possible that Spiderman killed her with the impact of the web stopping her fall?

There is a sudden bout of turbulence on the flight that shakes her out of her thoughts. The "fasten seatbelt" light pops on and people around her start to look up in alarm, but MJ stares straight ahead, not particularly caring.

"Is New York home, or are you visiting?" asks the woman sitting next to her, who is fidgeting nervously.

MJ opens her mouth to answer, but she isn't sure how to. "I'm staying for a little while," she says.

"Oh yeah?" The woman's eyes light up, and MJ wishes she hadn't answered, unhappy to be sucked into conversation. "What for?"

"Um—I'm visiting family," says MJ. Then she opens up an issue of Sky Mall and puts a pair of headphones on her ears.

Sometimes MJ thinks that her life is a big cosmic joke. She left New York and abandoned all of her aspirations for theater, only to end up on a plane barely any time later bound for Broadway.

It turns out to be a hollow victory. The last thing on earth MJ wants to do is move back to New York. In fact, when they announced that the show was getting picked up, MJ's first instinct was to jump ship: it didn't matter how long she had wanted this, because she didn't feel right wanting anything anymore. It already seemed wrong of her to be doing theater here at all, wrong of her to actively pursue and enjoy anything after the mess she left behind. She had stumbled into it blindly and then somehow been dragged further and further along until, when she had least wanted or expected it, she found herself on the brink of stardom.

It had started with an audition, a paid gig as a lead singer for a band that mostly did covers at weddings and occasionally entertainment at bars downtown. The wife of the drummer was producing the show, a new musical that had just received the green light and the funding to open in Chicago, and had convinced MJ to audition. MJ agreed the way a robot would: she knew it was the right choice to make, so she made it.

The next few weeks of auditions would have been grueling, if she had cared much at all, the way she used to care. But the auditions didn't faze her in the least. She was enduring her own kind of misery already, one that could not be overshadowed by anything else. In the morning she would wake up to the tiny, cramped apartment, and drag herself out of bed to make her waitressing shift at some touristy dive near Millennium Park. Then she would run a brush through her hair and slap enough concealer on to look presentable and head back to the exorbitant rounds and rounds of dance calls, line readings and singing auditions.

The character was a petite little thing called Amanda, a girl with a terrible stutter whose inner monologue spoke with perfect clarity and sass: the role required being able to switch between the two in quick, obvious ways. The musical was about her ongoing struggle to write a novel, and most of the other characters switched between people in her real life and the fictional characters in her imagination.

The music, the score and the book were brilliant. Even in her mindless stupor MJ recognized that. But she couldn't let herself feel any anxiety or desire as the auditions progressed and the girls they were considering dwindled in number, leaving MJ and one snot-nosed girl named Clarissa.

MJ knows the moment she lost the part: they were rehearsing a newly-written scene between Amanda and the love interest, one that required a passionate, pleading monologue begging him to understand she had loved him for years, ever since they met in high school, but she was just too afraid to say it.

It was an easy monologue, honest and direct. She could have sold it even at fourteen. But somehow, staring at the words that hit so bitterly close to home, MJ didn't just stop caring. She actively, undoubtedly did not want this part.

"Please, Steven, you have to understand," MJ said tonelessly. "I never said anything because I know I'm not what you're looking for. I'm not pretty like the other girls, or clever, or good at making jokes. I just thought that if I ever tried talking to you I'd just embarrass myself, because look at you. You're so handsome, and so perfect. You could have any girl you wanted, and—"

"Thank you, Jane," the casting director interrupted her. She looked up at him. His expression was reserved and tight. "That's actually all we need from you today. You're free to go."

It was a relief, walking out those doors. She was sure she wouldn't be cast at all, and that Clarissa had beaten her out for the role. Well as it turned out she was right about Clarissa, but she was mildly surprised the next day to be offered an ensemble part and the chance to understudy. She didn't have any reasons to say no, and it paid more than waitressing, so she took it.

Nobody could have predicted what an overnight success the production would become, or how fast all of their lives would be upended by the offer for a slot on Broadway. It is all MJ ever dreamed of as a little girl, and all that she worked for from college and beyond. She should relish this moment, the impossibility and serendipity of it, that after years of toiling in Manhattan, this amazing and life-changing opportunity has all but fallen into her lap.

She finds herself hating the universe for it instead. She feels trapped by her own success, suffocated by the choices she isn't free to make. She tells herself that she is a different person now, that she is far removed enough from what happened to be just fine in New York, but the flight goes by so quickly and as soon as the pilot announces their descent, she knows it isn't true.

SSSSSS

"Ten minutes to curtain."

MJ is anxious. Not because of the performance, which is, admittedly, important—it's the first day of a month of preview shows, and all the important critics she has been told to impress are sitting in the front row—but because when she walked into the theater today, she found that they had finally finished decorating the outside, which included a blown-up two-story high picture of her beaming face mid-performance that she hadn't even been aware was taken.

"Where's Jane?" she hears someone ask from outside her dressing room.

"Who knows. Don't bother. She'll be here at curtain."

"You'd think she'd at least warm up with the rest of us."

"Yeah, well, that's Jane for you. She's too good for the rest of her lowly cast mates."

MJ dusts some more blush on her cheeks, gaping at her too-wide, made-up eyes in the mirror. Never mind that she didn't bother warming up with them even when she was in the ensemble, too. It was easy to slip past all of them when she was part of the group, but now that she is the star she is under a magnifying glass. Her quirks that were forgiven as shyness before are all being considered rude and standoffish.

She doesn't care. She genuinely has no remorse for it. It used to be that she spent all her time consumed by trying not to care what other people thought of her, and now it is alarmingly easy to ignore them. They don't know anything about her, because she won't let them. They are judging an idea of her, not the real thing. Or maybe this is the real her now. Maybe she will always be withdrawn and remote, only coming alive when the stage lights hit her, and maybe she doesn't mind it one bit.

_Introducing Jane Watson!_ the headline under her picture read. She wonders how long she'll be able to stay invisible. She wonders if Harry even lives in the city anymore, and then, with a small pang of guilt, she wonders if Peter does, either.

It's been a long time since she has really let herself think about either of them. Mostly she thinks about Gwen, and her shame is too overwhelming to let her think about anything past that.

It's only just before the curtain rises up, when MJ really acknowledges for the first time that there is nobody she knows sitting in the audience for her Broadway debut, that she wishes desperately she had somebody to call. A mother or a father, a sister or a friend. It has been easy to pretend that she isn't completely alone in the world because she has always been surrounded by people at the diner, by her roommates in the apartment, by city dwellers in the street. But this instant when the curtain is rising into the darkness, when she swallows one last time, hard, and takes a deep breath anticipating the smack of the spotlight against her skin, she feels more lonely than she ever has.

As it hits her smile unfurls and she shuts her eyes like a sun-kissed bride, like a girl on the brink of her dreams coming true. Like the girl she should be. The music swells from underneath her, the piano light and happy, the violins pulsing with joy, and she opens her mouth and sings.

SSSSSSSS

After the show finishes MJ takes a breath and her shoulders hunch over and she sinks back into the comfort of blending into the walls. As she wipes the slop of make-up off her face with a wash She hears a cluster of the other actors buzzing about getting drinks at some bar that looks really cool—MJ knows for a fact that it's the most touristy and overpriced dive on Broadway, but she doesn't say anything as she breezes past them, and they don't invite her.

She is surprised to find a few people waiting at the stage door. She smiles for camera phones and signs a few programs, thanking them for coming to see the show, and then she pulls a sweater around herself even though it's a warm night in July.

"You need any help walking home?"

MJ is surprised to hear the sound of a voice so close to her. She jerks her head up in unconcealed alarm.

"Whoa, whoa. It's just me," says Darien, the guy who plays opposite of her character in the show. "Didn't mean to ruffle your feathers."

She can tell by the tone of his voice and the smug little half-smirk on his face that his every intention was to scare her. He matches her pace on the sidewalk, his face leaning into hers with an uninvited, uncomfortable closeness.

"I'm fine," she says firmly.

"Aw, I know how it is, Jane. Little girl, big new city—"

"I said I'm fine."

Darien sports an over exaggerated hurt expression, the kind that betrays his enjoyment of this situation, as if it is a game of cat-and-mouse and she has invited him into some sort of challenge. The truth is that he is grating on her, and has been for some time. He has hit on and probably even slept with a good majority of the women in their cast already. With his prominent, well-defined features and strong build she can see why—that, and the fact that he is probably the only heterosexual male any of the women here have come into contact with in months—but there is a certain slickness about him, an presumptuous and predatory look in his eye that sets MJ on edge.

"They may call you the ice queen," says Darien, letting his pace drop off, "but mark my words, Miss Jane: I'll be the one who makes you crack."

MJ suppresses a shudder and keeps her eyes pointed straight ahead. She doesn't want him to think he has had any effect on her. She can feel his eyes lingering on her back so she turns the corner and walks into a deli, just to be out of his sight.

Her apartment is a three bedroom that she is sharing with two other people in the cast, a pair of girls who are best friends and needed to split the rent with a third person to be able to afford the place. The lights are all off when she gets back, so she assumes the girls are out at the bar with everybody else. It's too quiet, so she flicks the television on. There isn't any cable, so she's stuck with the evening news.

"—a day in memoriam for all the victims of the Goblin's attacks," the reporter is saying, a view of Central Park in the daytime behind her. "A year after the Goblin's death, thousands of New Yorkers still mourn the lives lost to the—"

MJ switches the channel. An infomercial for a sandwich press lights up the screen and she slowly unlatches her fingers from the chair's armrests, breathing hard.

She has known for quite some time that the Goblin was dead. It was unclear how it happened, and none of the stories seemed to match up—some involving the police, most involving Spiderman, usually not in a good light—but MJ hadn't particularly cared what happened. All she needed to know was that they had found the Goblin's corpse. That somebody had proof of his cold, dead body, and that he would never come back again.

After an hour of staring blankly at the television MJ shuts it off. She washes her face in the tiny bathroom before heading to bed. Being in New York again makes her consider her reflection for the first time in a long time. Sure, she has been in front of plenty of mirrors, touching up her stage make-up and rehearsing long group dance numbers. But she hasn't lingered or thought about it beyond what was necessary.

It is the first time she has acknowledged the difference between the MJ that is here now and the MJ that left New York all those months ago. Her hair is loose and long, after years of keeping it at the same length just above her shoulders. Her cheeks are more defined, and maybe even a little gaunt. She had always complained about the chubbiness of her cheeks, but now that it's gone she notices how her eyes bug out in a desperate kind of way, and her nose and ears seem much more prominent than before. She looks both too young and too old at the same time, vulnerable and haunted and lost.

She falls asleep with no plans or intentions for tomorrow. It's a depressing kind of freedom: until show time, she has nowhere to go and nobody to see. She just lets things happen to her now, and for the most part it has worked in her favor. Why stop now?

SSSS

During the day MJ goes on long, meandering walks through the city, only ever thinking consciously enough to avoid the streets where she might run into Harry. It's a humid, sticky summer, and by the time she hauls herself home her clothes are usually damp and clinging to her tighter than saran-wrap. Mid-afternoon she showers off all the sweat and grime, then heads to the theater alone, spending the next few hours doing the same hair and make-up she has done every night before.

The show gets brilliant first reviews, and everyone is ecstatic. The press starts to build and build until their official opening night, when there seems to be a stir under the floorboards of the theater, full of excited people clutching programs and taking in the expanse of the space and the imaginative set. Before curtain one of the other actresses claims that she is going to hurl; everyone clucks sympathetically but MJ ignores her, feeling separate and contained.

"Someone looks nervous," says a slimy voice behind her.

MJ grits her teeth. She hates the sound of Darien's voice, hates the sound of his breathing a few inches away from her ear. It's getting harder and harder for her to pretend to be in love with him on stage.

Darien walks into her line of vision, undeterred by her ignoring him. "I can think of a few ways to loosen you up."

She walks away from him, and shuts the door to her dressing room in his face. It does seem a little diva-ish, and she is sure that anybody outside will assume she is being a complete brat. It's worth the security of a door sparing her the sight of Darien and his oversized ego, and all the nervous people fettering around as if tonight is the end of the universe.

She allows herself a small pang of nostalgia. There was a time when this would have upended her world, too. When the anxiety would have overwhelmed her, when every part of her would have been electric and on edge and filled with a beautiful kind of terror.

It's not that she is bored, or that she doesn't like her job. She just feels ambivalent. And maybe it's better that way—this, like all things in her life, can be taken away at the drop of a hat. Why grow attached to something she already knows is going to end? Realistically, this is not the beginning of a meteoric rise to fame. This is the beginning of maybe getting a steady paycheck now that she has one impressive thing on her resume, but it comes with no guarantees. Nothing ever has.

She waits behind the curtain for them to call five minutes. In the darkness from across the stage she sees a pair of eyes glinting at her. It is impossible to make out shapes from this distance, but somehow without being able to see him, she knows that it's Darien on the other side, waiting and watching her every move.

SSSSS

After MJ has been back to New York for two months, she finally starts to ground herself. It seems for the first few weeks as if she is walking around in a ghost of New York: since the Goblin's death, most of the city's residents had either returned or been replaced, giving the city a lively, noisy, overpopulated feel that it hadn't had in the last few years she lived in it. It frightens her at first, how she would walk and stare down at her shoes or the cracks in the pavement, and then suddenly look up and be transported into those post-undergraduate years, when she and Gwen weaved expertly and impatiently through these crowds and the stifling heat. She never thought she would miss the uncertainty, the insufficient paychecks and the cheap flip-flops that carried the grime of the entire city on them, but now that she is reminded to starkly of it, she does.

She considers going to Queens and checking on her father, but the thought of it makes her stomach churn and so she puts it off. Instead she attends all the necessary luncheons that the producers schedule, and finds herself an agent, and starts lining up auditions for small TV spots and other gigs around New York, figuring it's worth a shot. The market is hot now that everyone feels safe enough to return. Her understudy is the only one who ever wishes her luck finding work in film (MJ can't imagine why).

On Mondays the show is dark, so MJ has nowhere to be. Usually she spends it in her room, either watching old television shows on her laptop or catching up on sleep, but one Monday she decides to see a guest lecturer coming to the theater department at Empire State. She has been walking so often that it's her first time on the subway since she got back to the city, but even after all this time and the few changes made to the routes after the Goblin attacks, she manages to get herself there without any mistakes.

After the lecture, though, she finds that the usual subway stop she would take to get back to her apartment is gone. She feels embarrassed, having to backtrack to the auditorium and ask someone for directions. She arrives just as the train is pulling in and darts through the crowd to get herself inside before the doors close, and then feels foolish when she gets there, gasping, and still clearly has a few long seconds to spare.

There is a girl staring at her, possibly in judgment, so MJ turns her head out the window so she doesn't have to make eye contact. She looks out toward the crowded station, people leaving and coming in. She looks up and sees that three other routes are connected to this stop. She wonders what else has changed. By the smell and the dankness of the station, she can tell that some things have not.

She is about to turn her attention back to the subway car when she feels another pair of eyes on her, from outside the train. It is a strange but distinct feeling, the way she felt back in college when she was practicing a monologue in her room and just somehow _knew_ when someone was walking by in the hallway, to stop herself just in time. She doesn't mean to look for whoever it is—MJ has little interest at making eyes at strangers—but her gaze sweeps across the platform anyway.

Before she has a conscious thought her heart leaps into her throat and seems to hover there like a deflating balloon. She feels her eyes widen and her mouth drop open in surprise. There is no pretending she hasn't seen him, no ducking her head into her lap and staring into her phone screen, no way to avoid the direct and intense eye contact she is making with one Peter Parker.

She feels the train rumble beneath her, and sees Peter take a step forward, his eyes still locked on her. It seems for an absurd moment that he is going to try to board the train, even though he must have just gotten out of it—and then he keeps coming, and she realizes that he is.

"Mary Jane," she hears him call.

Something about hearing him say her name—shout it out loud, with undisguised shock and urgency above the din of all these other travelers—stirs something primal in her chest that she hasn't felt in a long time. She finds that she is still gasping, but not from the sprint, and that there is this strange feeling of euphoria that has washed over her, like she is weightless, like the world around them is malleable and she can stop time and reach her hand through the dirty glass of the train to reach him. The beauty of just seeing him is almost enough to crush her.

It was so easy to pretend that she could never see him again, that she imagined these feelings in a few moments of desperation, but now that he is here it is undeniable. Now that he is here it all comes rushing back, the anticipation and the false hope and the heartbreak, and there is something achingly nostalgic about it, something shameful and satisfying and _scary_.

"Mary Jane—"

The train doors shut in his face just before he reaches them. She is on her feet now, standing and staring at him, too stunned to react. He thinks she has not recognized him, thinks she has not heard him call out, and continues to call her name—she can see his mouth moving, his lips manipulating the syllables of it.

The train jerks forward and she stumbles and presses her hand to the glass. _Peter_. She wants to say it back, but she can't. She thinks he will disappear, but then he runs, darting past the passengers waiting at the platform, trying in a laughable attempt to keep up with the train. He still has those goofy ripped up sneakers with the broken laces. She can practically hear the slap of them echoing in her head.

Then the train hits the tunnel and in a split second so fierce it feels like a slap to the face, Peter is gone. The train plunges forward into the darkness, leaving MJ in a cold sweat, clutching a hand to her chest in disbelief.

Odds are in a city this big they will never run into each other again. Odds are it will be impossible for him to find her, even if he tries. But even if she never sees him again, it's too late—there is no escaping it now. No matter how far she runs and how long she hides, she will never stop loving Peter.

And for the first time in a very long time, MJ _feels_ something. It is bitter, it is sad and lonely and desperate, but it is still a feeling. She recognizes it, and almost fights it, but after a few more stops of the subway she lets herself soak it up like a thirsty plant in a dry heat: it is better than feeling nothing at all.


	13. Chapter 13

**Perpendicular**

"Whoa," says one of MJ's roommates (Lexie? Lizzie? It's terrible that she can't remember which is which) as MJ walks through the door. "You look—were you running? Your face is all flushed."

"Is it?" MJ touches her cheek. It feels hot under her fingertips. "It must be warm out."

Her roommate stares at her, with a patronizing kind of disbelief. "Alright," she says, turning back to her laptop. "If you say so."

It's probably the longest conversation they've ever had.

She is right about the heat, though. It is sweltering and all-consuming. It hit her in a thick wave as she ascended from the subway platform ten minutes earlier. But despite it she feels buoyant and light, like her body is capable of soaring. She glances out at the skyline in their living room window and can almost imagine taking flight. Her heartbeat is dancing in strange places in her body, in her ears and her tongue and her toes.

_Peter is in New York._

Of course he is in New York. Where else would he be? She had feared for the worst, thinking he might have gone and gotten himself killed after what happened to Gwen, or that he had left the city for good to escape the memory of her, but now that she has seen him it seems ridiculous to imagine that he could go anywhere else. Of course he is alive and whole and here, the way she left him, so fresh in her memory and demanding of her every nerve and fiber.

She shuts the door to her room so hard that it slams, and then presses her back against it, her palms flat against the wood. For a moment she is frozen and giddy. A moment later she feels positively senseless. She kicks her shoes off to absurd distances across her room, and scurries to pick them up, only to hold them in her hands and freeze again.

He practically chased her down that subway platform. The image of his face is burned onto the back of her eyelids, his mouth open mid-shout, his body arching forward to reach her. She imagines it so many times that she thinks she dreamed it, but she isn't imagining the blood coursing too quickly in her veins and the buzz in her forehead that must be the same kind of feeling as a drug high. It happened. It _must_ have.

She strips down her clothes, suddenly itching to be out of the constraints of her sweaty top and skirt. They fall to the floor and she leaves them there, not bothering to hang them up or put them in the hamper like she has in the past year. She walks into the bathroom, catching her reflection, hugging herself against some imaginary cold. Her eyes are so bright and wide that she looks like a madwoman. Her roommate is right—there is a color, a bright flaming red, that streaks across her cheeks as if somebody smacked her in precisely the same place on each side. The blush extends down her neck and to the tops of her arms and thighs, like she has come in from a very long cold.

Looking in the mirror she hazards a smile, a painful, tight, and manic smile, her mouth twitching with uncertainty. Should she be happy? Is this happiness? Is she allowed to be feeling whatever it is she is feeling right now? There are too many angles, too many things to feel sorry for and factors to consider, so instead she turns on the shower and steps in to an ice cold spray, relishing the distraction of it. She stands in there, hopping and shifting her weight from foot to foot until every part of her is numb and she can't stand it anymore, and then she shuts the water off.

For a little while she just stands there, sopping wet and naked, unsure of what to do with herself. She feels herself starting to come down from the mania, feels her limbs start to loosen and ache and a weariness creep back into her bones. She thinks it will be clarifying, that the calm will help her understand the intensity of her own emotions, but if anything it only muddles her more.

She doesn't want to think. She just wants to picture Peter's face on that platform, and trap him there in her memory: some part of Peter that does not include anyone else, some part of him that only belongs to _her_.

But she starts thinking anyway. Thinking of what a horrible person she has to be to think of Peter this way, when it would not only be traitorous to her best friend, but when Peter is still probably in unspeakable grief himself. There is no gray area here, no excuse or justification that would _ever_ make it alright for her to pursue him. And she knows, despite what she saw on the train today, that Peter would never pursue her.

Right?

She feels sick, wondering about it until her thoughts chase each other in circles. There is a part of her that knows for a fact that Peter will never think of her that way. He has always treated her like an annoying younger cousin, with the kind of cutting familiarity that is _too_ familiar. They have been mean to each other and never apologized for it; they have ignored each other for long spells without caring. Though these things happened a lifetime ago, a lot of it long before her feelings developed, she still can't ignore the fact that if there were even an inkling of a possibility for their future, she would have had some sign by now.

The problem is, though, that even her most realistic and harsh assessment of the situation does nothing to squelch the false hope swelling up under her ribcage, the kind that grows until it feels like it might split her bones and then bursts.

What would it be like, if Peter felt the same way? What would it be like, even for a moment, to have his arms around her again—to let herself sink into the warmth of him for one more stolen second, now that there isn't Gwen in the picture to stop them?

"Oh, god."

She is so disgusted and surprised by her own trail of thoughts that she speaks out loud without meaning to, sitting on the bed in a stupor. How could she? How _could she_—even for a second, think like that? She shakes her head, as if she can shake the guilt off with it, because of course if it were in her power she would do anything to bring Gwen back. She would suffer a thousand Peter-less lifetimes if it meant sparing her life.

But it doesn't change the fact that Peter is, by strict definition of the word, available now. She buries her head into her pillow, her wet hair soaking into the case. It doesn't matter if he is available. He is untouchable. Forbidden. And above all, uninterested.

She sinks into the mattress with resolve. She will not dissolve into a deluded, lovesick schoolgirl. Tomorrow she will wake up refreshed of this, calm and in control, the way she has been all this time. It was easy the first time. It will be easy again.

* * *

The fervor doesn't fade, though. Not the next morning when she wakes up and instantly checks her phone for messages or emails or texts, wondering if he found some way to track her down. Not on the long walk through Central Park, where she finds herself flinching at the sight of every lanky body or head of brown hair she sees. And certainly not at brush-ups rehearsal for one of the main dance numbers that the whole cast is attending.

"Jesus," one of the girls mutters, breathless from a particularly hard sequence. "Would you watch where you're going?"

"Sorry," MJ mutters. She looks up at the girl, a brunette with a perky little pixie cut and a scowl. She can't even think of her name. MJ scoots a little to her left in an attempt to satisfy her.

"Whatever."

Usually MJ would just ignore her. "I said I was sorry, do you want me to write it on a balloon?" she snaps, and the girl flips her hair cattily and huffs.

An hour or so later, when they are all red-faced and puffing and thoroughly synchronized on the routine, her roommates come up to her with inexplicable glee in their eyes.

"You totally told off Jeannette," one of them crows. "Good for you. She is _such_ a bitch."

"_Such_ a bitch," her other roommate echoes. "I mean, she thinks she's so great because her dad's a congressman, but who gives a shit? My dad's a plumber and she's no better than me."

MJ laughs out loud, the kind of laugh that starts in her belly and bursts out of her like a bullet, sharp and biting. She hasn't laughed like this in a long time, and surprises not only her poor roommates, but herself. It isn't that the conversation is particularly funny. It's just been so long since anyone bothered to gossip with her that the whole notion of it has set her off-kilter, like she doesn't quite remember what happens next in this standard girl-talk script.

"Yeah, well," is all MJ manages to offer on the subject, shrugging.

She almost cringes, but her roommates seem satisfied. They are all packed up and leaving, so they call their good-byes over their shoulders, saying that they will see MJ tonight when they all get home.

It's an insignificant moment, but it serves as a catalyst, and over the next week MJ feels herself slowly starting to unwind. It feels like there is an engine in her whirring, like she has all this unspent energy saved up inside of her that needs releasing. She joins her roommates for dinner instead of eating in her room, and they actually _talk_—she learns that Lizzie is the blonde one, and Lexie is the fake-blonde one, and then from there she learns about their hometowns, their families, how they ended up in Chicago last year and where they went to school. She is rusty, and awkward, and doesn't always match the pace of their conversations, but they are forgiving of this and in a short time MJ actually has friends.

The changes don't come drastically, but they continue from there. She wakes up thinking of Peter, and falls asleep thinking of Peter, but it isn't a terrible feeling, just a happy and indulgent secret, knowing that he is out there, close to her world, and safe. She walks around the city even more now, and expands her radius, letting herself wander to the old places she used to roam. It doesn't hurt, or at least hurt in the way she thought it would. There is sadness, but some promise lingering in it, that she might be able to return to some semblance of the person she used to be. That maybe the version of her that was happy once isn't so far out of reach.

Over the next few weeks it feels like she is coming out of an endless hibernation. She starts actually talking to her cast mates, and engaging people who stand in line after the show. She smiles without being prompted. She doesn't just walk, but goes on long runs, picking up speed each day and always ending with too much of herself left over. She feels bizarrely eager and on edge, and maybe even hopeful again.

She doesn't see Peter, but she looks for him. No matter where she is or who she is with, she is always, always looking.

After the show ends each night is when she feels the most anxious about it. She has this notion—a fantasy, really—that he will find some way to track her down, or that he will pass the giant blown-up picture of her on the side of the theater's building on his way somewhere, and even though she knows the thought of it is absurd, she imagines that he will come to the show and wait for her out there, in that same self-effacing and awkward way he did when he came to her show by himself all those years ago.

Every night she doesn't see him, and every night she walks back to the apartment feeling the same mixture of disappointment and relief.

"Hey, everyone's going out for drinks." Lizzie grabs her arm in a friendly way, her eyes still bright from the abusive amounts of glitter she couldn't scrape off from her costume. "You wanna join?"

It's the first time anyone has invited her. She opens her mouth to say no, because it's the smarter choice to make, when she should be preserving her voice. But it's a Sunday night and they don't have a show or any brush-up rehearsals the next day, so MJ agrees.

Darien doesn't end up coming with them, MJ is pleased to note. She finds herself getting a little tipsy off of her one drink—she is trying to think, and it might actually be a year since she has touched anything with alcohol in it, because she has never had anyone to drink with until now. It is a warm, familiar feeling, the heat of the wine in her cheeks, the smell of someone's cider and the promise of a cooler autumn nipping at their heels. They go around the table telling embarrassing stories about auditions, and MJ tells one about a dog who tried to eat her hair in an ill-fated dog food commercial that gets a round of hearty laughs.

She is bright, restoring an old confidence, and lets her gaze linger on men at the bar. She remembers being nineteen and sneaking into dives like this for the not-so-secret thrill of feeling the stares of strange men like a magnet on her. She throws her head back to laugh, exposing a panel of skin under her tight t-shirt. For a moment she feels pretty again—it's a ridiculous thought to think, because she knows she has never looked ugly in her life, but she has felt invisible for so long that it is nice to think that maybe someone, somewhere, maybe the strangers at this bar, might think she is attractive.

Lexie bumps into her, decidedly drunk, and cups her hand against MJ's ear. "Mmm—now he's a cutie," she stage-whispers, pointing to a boy slouched over a drink at the bar. "Don't wait up for me at home tonight!"

Lizzie guffaws and MJ laughs, trying to get a better look at him. Then her face freezes mid-grin and she takes a step back, stricken and rigid.

It's Harry. The boy that Lexie is pointing at is _Harry_.

MJ glances over at her roommates but neither of them noticed her reaction. She glances back to Harry, whose back is still turned to them despite all their antics, and tells herself to calm down. They are mature adults, and this was bound to happen eventually. If he sees her she will offer him a polite smile, and have a civil conversation with him, one that she maybe should have had a long time ago.

He lifts his hand to scratch his head, his eyes nearly flicking over to them, and MJ feels a sudden insurmountable dread.

No—she doesn't want to talk to him. It's not just that, but she can't. Not like this. Not tipsy and flushed and surrounded by a bunch of drunk, hooting actor-types. This isn't the time or the place, it wouldn't be appropriate.

She grabs her purse from its perch on the stool, smiling at her roommates and giving a cheery wave. "I'm going to duck out," she says. "See you guys in the morning?"

Lexie wiggles her eyebrows in Harry's direction. "We'll see."

MJ doesn't realize that she has stopped breathing until she has to stifle a gasp on the sidewalk. She doesn't dare glance back to see if he might have spotted her, because he could see her face through the window. She doubts if she were just walking past in profile, dressed in a wrap-around sweater that he has never seen on her with her hair so long and her face so angular, that he would recognize her in the darkness of a bar. Still, she doesn't want to take any chances.

It is a short walk to her apartment, and a good fifty blocks away from where she and Harry used to live together. She wonders where he lives now. She wishes she had gotten a better look at him, if anything about him had changed as significantly as she did. It is a detached kind of curiosity, though—it won't eat at her tonight, and it certainly won't make her regret her decision to leave him. She can't help the part of her that still cares what happens to him, though. After all the years they were together, that kind of concern can't just fade away.

"Mary Jane."

She can't tell where the voice is coming from right away, but she knows without looking that it's Peter, and her face is already redder than a tomato by the time she finds him. He is slouching on the wall next to the entrance of her apartment building, but when she stops short he moves a few feet to close the gap between them.

"Peter," she manages. Her arms flinch at her sides—should she hug him? Is that okay? Would he let her? It would be perfectly normal, she decides as he stands in front of her, but then she has spent too much time hesitating and awkwardly lets her hands go limp. Peter's arms are half extended as if he meant to hug her too, but when she draws back he pats her on the shoulder instead.

It is all so terribly graceless that MJ wants to grab her oversized sweater and shove her face into it.

For a moment Peter doesn't say anything, still recovering, it seems. She has noticed over the years that even when he has something to say, he is almost never the first one to talk. So she clears her throat and manages, "How have you been?"

It's a stupid question. Of course he has been miserable, of course his grief was probably monumentally more overwhelming than hers. She winces after he asks it, and looks up at him cautiously, but his face is unreadable. This surprises her—in the old days whenever he was agitated it seemed to broadcast across his entire face, but now he just seems sullen and quiet. Otherwise he almost looks the same, as if no time has passed at all.

"When did you get back to New York?" Peter asks, without answering.

MJ finds herself shifting her weight between her feet, shuffling uncertainly. "About a month ago."

"Why?"

She frowns. His words are cold and perfunctory. "I'm in a show," she says coolly, suddenly embarrassed by how eager she had seemed before.

"Look," says Peter. He raises a hand to his forehead and squeezes the skin between his eyes. "I don't know where you've been, but I think—I think you should go back."

For a moment all she can do is stare at him. She waits for his face to crack, for some sort of indication that he is kidding, or at least sorry for what he has said, and when none of that happens she feels the back of her eyes start to sting. "What?" she says. "Are you telling me to leave New York?"

Peter nods. "As soon as you can."

MJ shakes her head. She is afraid her voice will come out weak, but it is surprisingly bitter and present. "It's good to see you too," she says, hoisting her bag up on her shoulder and heading into the apartment building.

Peter reaches out and gently stops her. Even through the fabric of her sweater she can feel the heat of his hand, the strength of his fingers, so long that they easily circle around her upper arm.

"It's just that it's not safe here—"

"When has it ever been?" MJ snaps. She can't look at him, she is so humiliated. Letting him see how upset she is may actually be the only thing that could make this worse. When she doesn't hear Peter answer right away, she adds, "The Goblin's _dead_, Peter. And besides that—"

She is going to say, _And besides that, I can do whatever I want_, but Peter's entire jaw tightens and she sees a depth of unfathomable pain cross his face. He has trouble recovering himself, stepping away from her, releasing her arm. For a moment the two of them stand there in the doorway, both of them quiet and unsure. They are supposed to talk around the Goblin. They are supposed to find some way of hinting at what happened without actually saying it, and she's not sure how it will help anything, but she doesn't want to see that look on Peter's face again.

She takes a breath. There is no reason for her to be malicious. "I just don't understand why you're telling me this."

Peter recomposes himself. "It has to do with Harry."

MJ shakes her head. "I just saw him. He seems well."

"He found you?" Peter's words sound calm enough, but his eyes widen just a little too much, giving him away. "When? Just—just now?"

"No," says MJ, pointing in the general direction of the bar. "I mean, I saw him. I didn't—" She is embarrassed to admit it. "I didn't say hello, I just left," she mumbles.

"Good."

MJ looks at Peter incredulously.

"He hasn't been himself lately," Peter says. "He's been—obsessive. About some things. And he's been looking for you." Peter is talking to her, but his eyes are downcast, and he seems far away. "He thinks there are all these conspiracies, or something, and I think there are drugs involved, and possibly some other …" Peter struggles for a moment. "I think he's dangerous."

"Dangerous? Harry?" MJ echoes.

Peter nods. "I know it sounds crazy. But you haven't been here, you haven't seen. And with the kind of money he has behind him—the kind of power—"

"Harry isn't like that," MJ cuts him off. "I mean, Jesus, Peter, you're making him sound like some kind of super villain. He's just Harry."

Peter's lips thin into a grim line. "He's not the Harry he was when you left."

MJ lets the words settle into the air, trying to fully grasp what Peter is saying. She hugs her arms to her chest, feeling unseasonably cold, the hurt mingling with indignation and embarrassment and finally, exasperation.

"Even if you're right," she says, "I can't just up and leave. I'm starring in a show. On Broadway."

If she expects to impress him, even a little, she is sorely disappointed. "They'll find somebody else," he says earnestly, not understanding the implications of what he has said at all.

She stiffens. "Yeah. You're right. I'm easily replaceable, thanks for that."

He just barely manages to stop himself from rolling his eyes, but not before she has caught him. "Mary Jane—"

"No, no, save it," she says, stalking away from him, not even sure where she's going. "Save me the lecture. It was nice seeing you again, Peter. I really missed you too."

"You're being unfair—"

"_I'm _being unfair?" she says, her voice cracking, her arms extending in some angry and ineffective gesture. "I haven't seen you in almost two _years_, and the first thing you do is march over here and tell me to get out—"

"But you won't listen to me," says Peter, his voice unexpectedly loud. "You never do. For God's sake, Mary Jane, I've lost enough already, I don't want to lose you, too. What the hell do you want me to say?" He is standing apart from her now, a few feet away, but even from her she can see his jaw clenching, his hands actively trying not to curl into fists.

Just like that, all her anger dissipates. It is gone as if it never existed, and all she wants, inexplicably, is to cry.

"Peter," she says.

He is already looking away from her. "I know that I'm not making much sense," he allows, his voice gruff. "But if something happened to you and I hadn't done everything I could to prevent it, I would never forgive myself."

The weight of what he has said is not lost on MJ: he blames himself for what happened to Gwen. There are so many unanswered questions on the tip of her tongue, questions she would never dare to ask him, that she has been able to push aside in her mind ever since Gwen's death. Now even this small confession of fault from him has brought that anxiety back, the curiosity she is afraid of, the truths she doesn't want but needs.

He is walking away from her. Something in the pace, in the rhythm of his steps as he is walking away, communicates that he is done with this conversation, and doesn't expect to have another. She can't believe that he really thinks she would leave that easily. Does he not remember her at all?

"Wait," she calls.

He stops walking, his shoulders hunching upward, on edge. He turns his head just barely to face her.

"Where are you living now?"

He sighs and turns his body back toward her, his face apologetic and weary. "Mary Jane," he says. "Please. Get out of the city as soon as you can."

She only stands there for a few more seconds. Then she swivels on her heels and walks into the apartment building, determined not to watch him leave, determined not to be there if he turns around.

He says he is acting this way because he wants to protect her. Because he _cares_. But somehow as she tries to recall the nuances of their conversation, how Peter was so abrupt and unfamiliar, it feels like nobody has ever cared less about her than he does right now.


	14. Chapter 14

**Perpendicular**

MJ wakes up the next morning to the sound of Lexie's laughter trickling in from under her door. She opens her eyes blearily, and realizes she never set her alarm last night after the incident with Peter. It's nine o'clock, a good hour later than she usually gets up to go for a run.

She suppresses a groan. There is a headache gnawing at her forehead and eyeballs, either a punishment for sleeping in or for the one drink she indulged in last night. She rubs at her face and decides to go for a run anyway, because she doesn't have anywhere to be this afternoon and can afford to go out a little late. She finds a running bra and shorts and ducks out of her room when she realizes she must have shed her sneakers in the living room and left them there.

She is shoving her left foot into a shoe when Lexie's door creeps open, and MJ sees the silhouette of a man walk out. She doesn't look up at first, because even in the few weeks she has been here she has gotten used to seeing strange men in the apartment and then never seeing them again. She finishes tying her laces and runs her fingers through her hair to pull it back into a ponytail when she sees, in her periphery, that the man has not moved, and appears to be staring at her from Lexie's doorway.

MJ looks up, an irritated expression already poised on her face. Then she catches sight of him and her hair slips through the cracks of her fingers and her mouth unhinges, open in incomprehension.

"Harry," she says, her voice sounding mangled and overly bright.

His expression is pained, some mixture of embarrassment and anger and shock. His eyes are squinting at her as if he can't quite believe what he is seeing, and he is holding a towel that looks as though it is about to fall out of his hand. He is bare-chested, and every bit as well cut as he was when they were dating, MJ can't help but notice with a calculated sweep of her eyes. His hair is wet from the shower and he is wearing nothing but boxers—it doesn't take MJ long at all to figure out what must have happened last night.

"It's you," Harry says back. "I—Mary Jane, I—I almost didn't recognize you."

She purses her lips, feeling suddenly over-exposed in her running clothes, in front of this man who has seen her naked a thousand times.

"It's my hair," she says, grabbing at it self-consciously, as if it can somehow shield her from his sight.

He shakes his head. MJ hears a distinct squeak and whirr of the shower turning on, and their eyes both flit over to the bathroom.

"Is Lexie in there?" MJ asks, without inflection.

"Where have you _been?_" Harry asks right on the heels of her question.

MJ gnaws at the inside of her cheek. There are a dozen things she is supposed to say here, things she has rehearsed in her mind over and over, because this was inevitable, wasn't it? Sooner or later she was going to have to have a conversation with Harry, and explain why she did what she did, why she up and left without a word and let herself disappear after Gwen's death.

But of all the worst case scenarios she imagined meeting him again, there is no way on earth she could have anticipated this. She stands, feeling awkward and bare, with the intention to cross the room and talk to him face-to-face, but he moves so quickly that she doesn't even have a chance.

She doesn't protest when he nearly knocks her over, embracing her, pulling her into him. His skin is still wet, and warm against her cheek. He smells like shampoo and nostalgia and _Harry_. It is remarkable, how easily their bodies still fit together, and for the first time she really feels as small as she has gotten since Gwen's death—his arms feel tighter around her, as if there is so much more of him there, but it isn't overwhelming. He embraces her without expectation or motive, and she relaxes, even when the hug goes on for a little too long.

He pulls away first, but only because she feels too guilty to.

"I looked everywhere for you," he says. His hands are still on her shoulders, steady and determined, the way she remembers him. "You scared me to death."

Her eyes are welling up. It isn't regret—she wouldn't take it back—but it's guilt, mingled with shame, because she never deserved to have Harry care about her this way.

"I'm sorry," she says.

She hears a clatter in Lizzie's room a few feet away, and creaking footsteps across the floor. MJ steps away from him, out of his grasp, and they look at each other uncomfortably.

"The thing is—last night—"

MJ shakes her head. "You don't have to explain," she says.

"No, I want to," Harry says urgently. "All this time, I—I've been looking for you, it's not like I've been wandering around the city, just—doing—things like this," he says, gesturing, his voice low so the other girls won't hear.

"Harry," she says, about to tell him that he has nothing to be sorry for, that she never left with the assumption that he would wait for her. But just as she opens her mouth to say it, she hesitates. It sounds insulting, she thinks, to tell him that she doesn't care who he sleeps with, doesn't care what he has been doing all this time, when he just told her how worried he has been and how he spent so much time trying to track her down. She stands there, trying to recover, and is saved by the grace of God with the sound of Lexie's voice reverberating from the shower: "Any chance you wanna join me in here, stud?"

Harry cringes. MJ fights back a biting laugh.

"I'd better go," MJ says. "Before …"

"Listen," says Harry, his voice near whispering but still intense. "I want to talk to you. Do you have any time tonight? Please," he adds, before she can hesitate. "Please, just agree to a meal, or coffee, or something."

She remembers Peter's face from last night, hard and unyielding.

"Alright," she says. "Um—I finish a show tonight around ten. Is that too late?"

"No, that's great. Name the place."

They decide a diner close to the theater and hastily agree to find each other there. The water shuts off from the shower and MJ backs away from Harry, not wanting Lexie to catch them at such an intimate distance away from each other.

"I'm going to head out," she says, feeling a comical kind of guilt for talking to Harry like this, knowing how hurt and confused Lexie would be if she had walked out and caught them.

He nods solemnly. "Don't disappear again, Mary Jane."

* * *

"There's just something so _dark_ about him. Like, mmff, I don't know. So intense. And did you _see_ those abs? Did you _see_ them? Plus you can just tell he's loaded. His watch probably cost a fortune and he almost just _left_ it on my end table—ohmigod, do you think he was trying to do that so I'd have to call him, so he'd have to come back? Ohmi_god_, I shouldn't have said anything when he left it there!"

MJ nods and laughs during the appropriate pauses, and Lizzie picks up the slack with random dirty interjections. The entire day spans on and on like this, with the three girls perched in front of the television, all three drinking some nasty concoction of lemon juice and cayenne pepper for a cleanse. Lexie touches up her roots while MJ and Lizzie give themselves unsuccessful French manicures from a kit. The hours are almost unendurable, the girl talk and the unnecessary detail about Harry's downstairs situation and the growing pit in her stomach thinking of meeting Harry tonight after Peter's stern warnings.

By the time MJ leaves the show to meet him she is late, and in a tizzy, having changed her mind about meeting him ten times in the last hour. She decides at curtain that she will meet him, and then gets held up by a bunch of tourists asking for pictures at the stage door. She clambers into the restaurant breathless, her feet aching on their high heels, her face still caked in make-up and her hair still voluminous and blown out of proportion.

The instant Harry sees her he stands up at the table, like a soldier at attention.

"I thought you weren't coming," he says. "I really thought you weren't."

"Well." MJ smiles uncomfortably at the hostess, who has followed her to the table. "I'm here."

"You look …" Harry scans her up and down. The skimpy dress, the heels, the bright coat and the hair and the mascara. She wishes she had taken some time to change into something a little more modest, because she is afraid he thinks she is trying to put on a show for him. "Different."

MJ blinks at him. "Um. Thanks."

"No, no, I just mean—god. I'm sorry. I don't know what I'm saying. You look great," he says, pulling out a chair for her. "Here, here, sit."

MJ obeys. He is so palpably on edge that she feels her own anxiety fade, and start to replace itself with a mild and familiar irritation. She shakes it off and stares at him politely as they sit down, giving him her full attention.

"So you're in a show," he says.

MJ nods carefully, wondering how much he actually knows, how much Lexie unwittingly revealed by talking to him. "Yeah," she says. "I am."

"Congratulations. You must be really happy."

She wraps her hand around the glass of water in front of her, her palms slick with the condensation. "It's kind of hard to believe."

Harry offers the barest of smirks. "Well, not that hard. You've always been talented. It was only a matter of time."

She has to stop herself from wincing. She doesn't want him to think that she is fishing for compliments, because the truth is she doesn't want any kind words from him. It only makes her feel even more as if she has taken advantage of him.

"How have you been? Are you … keeping busy?" MJ asks. She stares at him, his face relatively unchanged, not full or gaunt or betraying some darkness like Lexie made him out to be. She can't study him for too long without making some sort of implication, but at a glance he just seems like Harry. A little older, maybe—it has, after all, been almost two years—but she wonders what on earth could be so bad about him that Peter felt it necessary to stalk her down last night the way he did.

"More or less," says Harry. "Yeah. But Mary Jane—you have to tell me where you've been. What happened to you, why you just—why you never said a word."

She looks away, her hands locked together tightly on the tabletop.

"I'm not angry. I just want to know. I feel like I need to know, to understand."

MJ nods without looking at him, and tries to grasp for words that are adequate enough. Everything sounds so cliché and self-indulgent. She can't just say that she needed time alone, that she needed to discover herself and she wasn't ready to commit. And she can't fall back on the truths that she is not willing to admit—that she was terrified, not of the Goblin, but her feelings for Peter and the way that they seemed to consume her, and the grief that she couldn't even let herself properly acknowledge without feeling like a traitor.

She hasn't consciously decided what to say when she finds the words spilling out of her: "I miss her," she says. It's the first time she has talked about Gwen to anyone since it happened. She did not attend the funeral, or tell anyone in Chicago what had happened. She did not call Gwen's mother or even check for an obituary after she left the city. None of that would bring Gwen back.

Harry is waiting for her to continue. It isn't really an answer, and she knows it, so she tries again: "She was my _best friend_. After I left home, she was the only real family I had."

She can see Harry opening his mouth to protest, but he stops, and they are both surprised by the fat tear that streaks down MJ's cheek and thuds on the table. She touches a hand to her face, surprised by how unexpectedly the tears come. It hurts in a way she has never let herself hurt, to really think of what she has lost. Gwen was the first person she called, good news or bad news or any time of day. Gwen was her sister, her champion, her voice of reason and her safe place to land. Gwen was the person she most relied on and the person she most took for granted, and then in an instant, in a singular and unforgiving instant, she was _gone_.

"And she was supposed to get _married_, and she was so perfect, and loyal, and smart, and—" MJ is trying to keep her voice down, because even though they are in a corner booth and it's late she is suddenly painfully aware of the spectacle she is making—"Gwen deserved it, all of it, and it just got taken from her. And I couldn't … it didn't feel right, everything here, I just couldn't stand it."

Harry, to his benefit, doesn't try to calm her down or shrink away from the few people who have started glancing over at them. He takes a moment and nods calmly, considering what she has said. "I miss her too."

She stares at him. Of course he misses her, but he will never really understand what MJ is feeling, what she felt back then. But he seems to accept this explanation, at least for now, in this crowded diner full of strangers. MJ swipes at her eyes inconspicuously to get rid of the mascara she is sure has dripped down her face. Peter was wrong. Harry is mature, and patient, and understanding. The way she expected he would be. The way she wishes he weren't, so she could justify all her wrongs.

"Tell me," she says, weakly, trying to change the topic. "How everything has been … with OsCorp, the foundation, your father …"

Harry's eyebrows shoot up. "My father?"

MJ pauses, trying to gage his reaction. "Yeah," she says hesitantly.

"My father—" Harry stops himself, his mouth puckering oddly. The hand he has on the table, the one that she can see, is tense around a fork, twisting it between his fingers. He stares down at it and says, "I guess you haven't heard."

MJ feels her stomach sink. "Heard what," she asks in a careful voice.

Harry gives her a rueful, bitter grin. "You must have been living under a rock. My father's dead."

"Oh," MJ exclaims, a hand to her mouth. She shakes her head, feeling her chest seize with sympathy. She has been so selfish, so overwhelmed by her own troubles that she never even thought there was a chance another tragedy would strike, so close on the heels of Gwen's death. How could she not have even checked on Harry? How could she have missed this monumental and terrible thing, that he probably went through alone? And _why didn't Peter tell her about this?_

"Harry … I'm so sorry."

Harry just shrugs, his eyes downcast. "It happened like a year ago."

_How?_ she wants to ask. Norman Osborn was a lot of things—loud, crude, bitingly intelligent and insanely driven—but among those things, he was certainly healthy, certainly fit. He saw to it, didn't he, with all those fancy personal trainers and nutritionists? MJ knows he had heart issues at some point or another, so she just assumes it must have been a heart attack, because she doesn't want to ask Harry herself.

It turns out she doesn't have to.

"Can I tell you something?" Harry asks.

His words are strained, like he is desperate to say whatever is on his mind. He leans forward, his eyes compelling, his nostrils flared. She has looked at him now and she has no choice but to nod.

"This is going to sound … I haven't told anyone this, but I know what I saw, Mary Jane, I _know_ what I saw."

She bites the inside of her cheek. "Okay," she says, prompting him to continue.

"Everybody thinks my father died in an attack from the Goblin." Harry's voice is so low and his expression so surprisingly intense that it steals her breath, waiting for what he is going to say next. "But I know the truth. It wasn't the Goblin."

The noises of the diner seem to fade away as he holds her stare, so steadily that she feels like she is getting sucked into it. The clatter of forks against plates, cooks calling out orders, the steam and the heat of cooking food from the kitchen a few feet away, all of it seems separate and ordinary and inaccessible. Just before he takes in a breath, just before he finishes the thought, she feels the first pang of regret for ignoring Peter.

"It was Spiderman."

MJ doesn't move. She knows however she reacts to this is very important to him, and even though she is stunned and disbelieving, she doesn't want to give herself away. Harry is still looking at her, almost daring her to contradict him, to say all the words that are threatening to fall out of her mouth.

"How do you know?" she asks instead.

Harry looks agitated that she has to ask. "I saw him. I saw him kill my father."

MJ doesn't want to risk working him up any further, but she has to know. "How?" she ventures.

"He killed him, and then I watched him crawl in through my father's window, and just _dump_ him there. Bloody and beaten and _dead_. It's no mystery that my father has always hated Spiderman," says Harry, "anybody working at OsCorp with half a _brain_ knows he must have stolen OsCorp technology for those webs he uses—but whatever the reason, he felt threatened enough to murder my father in cold blood."

At some point MJ stops hearing his words and starts hearing the mania that lies just beneath the surface of them, the strange new cadence of the way he talks, a little off-kilter and imbalanced. She knows in her heart that Harry is wrong, and he practically just admitted himself that he hadn't seen the murder happen only seconds after insisting that he had.

Harry sucks in a breath through his teeth. "My father," he practically growls, "who worked _tirelessly_ funding weapons, developing strategies, _anything he could_ to stop the Goblin. I barely ever saw him, he was always working, trying to save this city." Harry swallows, hard, and it looks like he is swallowing poison at the thought of it. "And then _Spiderman_ gets all the credit for it. He kills my father and everyone thinks he's a fucking hero."

MJ's heart is racing but her thoughts are too sluggish to catch up with her. "Harry …"

"You believe me, right?" His eyes are flashing, and the skin on his face is red and throbbing. She is staring at him, not answering quickly enough. "Mary _Jane_, _Tell_ me you believe me."

"I believe you," she says. She glances around to make sure nobody is listening, that nobody has overheard.

Harry relaxes, but barely. He settles back a few inches into his seat and puts a weary hand to his face. "I knew you would," he says. "You know me, Mary Jane. You know me. You believe me, even when nobody else does."

MJ nods, knowing now that there must have been a conversation like this with Peter that ended very differently.

"Look," says Harry, the flush in his skin starting to even out, his voice calmer. "We have a lot of catching up to do. I mean, I know it's been a long time, but since you're back now … I've really missed you."

"Oh," MJ says, a little startled by how drastically the conversation has twisted. "Um. Harry."

"Of course I wouldn't expect everything to just go back to normal," Harry says, with a nervous laugh. "But the way I see it … if the Goblin hadn't happened, if Gwen and my father hadn't died last year, we would still be living together. And even now, we've found each other again, haven't we?"

_Because you were banging my roommate_, MJ thinks to herself, but he looks so painfully earnest that she keeps the thought to herself. It is irrelevant anyway. She has known for a long time that she is finished with Harry, and if she were afraid that seeing him again would stir up old feelings, if she were afraid the insecurity of being alone and knowing Peter doesn't want her would shove her back into Harry's arms again, she isn't afraid anymore. She is a different person now, for better for worse. The kind of person who doesn't need anyone to love her.

She keeps her voice firm when she speaks. "I've missed you too, Harry. And you're right. We should catch up. But—"

"Wait," Harry cuts her off. "Just—I didn't mean to put any pressure on you," he says, as if she is the fragile one and not him. "We don't have to jump right back into everything. But I couldn't live without you, Mary Jane, and now that you're here again …" He struggles for a second, and she knows why: he is trying to make this sound like a decision that they are making together, not one that he is making alone. "What I'm trying to say is, I love you. And I know you loved me, before everything happened, and that doesn't just go away. I think if we give it time, we can make this work."

He makes it all sound so sensible. What he doesn't realize is that it is too late to sway her. That even before Gwen's death she intended to leave him, and nothing that has happened since then would make her change her mind.

"I will always be here for you," MJ says, trying to sound diplomatic and mature.

The nervous smile slides off of Harry's face. The waitress walks by and asks if they'd like to order. MJ tells her no and Harry doesn't even look up, pretending to scrutinize the menu, hiding his embarrassment.

The waitress leaves and they sit there in silence for a few moments.

"God, I must seem pretty pathetic to you right now," Harry says bitterly.

"No," MJ is quick to assure him. "What would make you—"

"Is it because I slept with that girl? I was telling the truth, Mary Jane, I never do that kind of thing. But I hadn't seen you, hadn't heard from you, for all I knew you were dead, too—is it so wrong that I moved on?" he says, completely misinterpreting her reluctance.

"No, of course it isn't." MJ says what she held back earlier, in hopes that it will convince him to let her go: "I'm glad that you did. I wouldn't want you waiting around for me."

His expression is tight. "So you're telling me there's nothing left to wait for."

She closes her eyes and takes a breath. "I'm sorry," she says, steeling herself, "if I gave you the wrong impression."

He just shakes his head with a rueful little smile. "You know what, don't worry about it. You never do."

She deserves to hear that, but it still hurts. He gets up from the table and she sees the slightest hesitation. He still thinks that she might try to stop him, that she might change her mind. It breaks her heart to see that second flit by, the one he is counting on, the one where she is supposed to grab his hand and beg him not to go.

"Hey," he says, without looking at her. "When you realize you made a big mistake—you know where to find me."

He means for the words to sound flippant, maybe even funny, but they don't come out that way. He leaves the diner, and MJ doesn't even turn around to watch him go. She folds up the menus and leaves two dollars on the table for the time that they wasted and the food they didn't get. Then she gathers up her purse, buttons her coat back up and leaves.

She feels a selfish kind of relief when the cool night air hits her face. Harry was the one loose end left here, at least the one loose end that she could do something about. As for everyone else—well, she is finished with her father, and it seems as if Peter is finished with her. So she walks out of the diner toward her apartment feeling a quiet peace she hasn't felt in a long time. Her world is predictable and orderly. She has a routine, she has friends, she has goals and motivation and nothing to tie her down.

By the time she nears her apartment almost midnight. Her feet are killing her, so she slides out of her heels and puts on her spare pair of flats, stopping on a street corner a few blocks from her apartment. A drop of rain falls from the sky and hits her nose; she looks up just as a few indecisive drops follow it, and just as she is about to turn her attention back to her shoes, she sees it: an unmistakable flash of red, swooping low and then shooting up high above her, so quickly she might have imagined it.

There he is. Spiderman. She is certain of it, even though he was barely in her line of sight. She tucks her toes into the worn out shoes and keeps walking, occasionally looking back up, knowing that he is long gone.

She wonders if Peter will ever find out that she met with Harry. She wonders if he will be angry with her. She both hopes that he will and that he won't. She would never want to disappoint him, but at the same time it is the only thing that has kept him near—if he hadn't been so adamant about warning her about Harry, would he have even bothered to find her at all?

Which makes her address a question that was too bewildered to think of—how did Peter know where to find her last night? Without knowing how long she had been in town, or that she was even in a show—without knowing her new phone number and without any mutual friends who could have pointed him there—how did he end up at their door, waiting for her, certain he had the right address?

A gust of wind blows by, nipping at her exposed calves and ankles. She knows why, or at least she thinks she might, and suddenly she knows she is wrong to think that she has nothing to worry about, nothing left to fear. Because if Peter is afraid of what Harry is capable of—Peter, who has the least to be afraid of than anyone in the city, if MJ's suspicions have any truth—then they should all be afraid.

She just wishes she understood what she should be afraid of.


	15. Chapter 15

**Perpendicular**

A few nights later when MJ walks out of the stage door, there isn't a crowd waiting for them, just a few dedicated stragglers. It's sleeting, and sleeting hard. She has an umbrella with her but she feels it getting pounded, and besides that it is freezing, hitting the part of her feet left exposed by her inappropriate high heels and putting a frost in the air that cuts to her bones.

It's the middle of October. It is ridiculous for the weather to be this terrible this soon in the year. She hugs one arm around her flimsy coat and grips her umbrella with the other so tight that her knuckles are white with effort.

"Share a taxi?" Darien offers. "And maybe a mattress?"

MJ doesn't even glance up at him. "I'll walk."

He snickers from behind her. She keeps walking, frigid from the cold. Darien at least has been annoying her less since she started making friends with people in the cast. She figures she was only fun to try and rile up back when she wasn't talking to anybody, and now that she has loosened up it probably isn't nearly as thrilling for him.

"Hey."

It's an angry "hey," not a hello. MJ turns, thinking maybe it's Darien following her, but even through the sleet she can make out Peter's tall, lanky form, and the scowl on his face.

"Peter?"

"What the hell?" he splutters. "I told you Harry was dangerous. I _told_ you to stay away from him, but of course, of _course,_ being Mary Jane Watson you just _had_ to go find him anyway."

She is surprised by his anger, by the suddenness of his arrival, but she is far from stunned. "I hardly went looking for him," she snaps, "it wasn't my fault—"

"What, you _accidentally_ ran into the one guy in a city of millions of people that I told you to stay away from?"

"He was fucking my roommate," MJ says, "I had no idea he was in my apartment, I was practically ambushed—"

"And then what?" Peter demands, without missing a beat. "Hypnotized into meeting up with him later? I mean for Christ's sake—"

"I couldn't just ignore him!" MJ protests, so bewildered and offended by his accusations that she couldn't speak calmly if she tried. "The damage was already done!"

"You have no idea," Peter says, his voice suddenly dropping low, his eyes set on hers grimly. He is close now, so close that she has to lift up the umbrella to see him. The freezing seems to exaggerate his features, bring out the changes she hadn't noticed before: the exhaustion in his eyes, the strung out posture, the paleness of his face. He looks crazy, she thinks to herself. She wonders if it is possible that Peter is the crazy one, and not Harry at all; but even as she considers this, she knows Peter will always be her choice.

Still, he has no right to yell at her like this. "I owed him an explanation. I'm not planning on seeing him again."

"You certainly picked a great time to take the moral high road, Mary Jane."

She bites her tongue, knowing anything she says now will be snarky and only serve to undermine her. Instead she shakes her head at him, lowers the umbrella and starts walking away.

"So that's it? You're not going to listen to a word I say, are you," Peter says caustically, following her.

She wheels around, and a spray of sleet hits her in the face. _God_, it's cold. "You haven't given me a single reason why I should," she says, willing her teeth not to chatter.

"What more do you want me to _say? _I told you, he's unwell, and he's dangerous—"

"How would you know?" she demands. "I was there. I talked to him. And yeah, he's a little bit stressed, but under the circumstances, how can you blame him?"

"It's not just _stressed_," Peter says, in that familiar patronizing way of his. "He's—god dammit, you know what?" he says, running a hand through his hair, slick with water and specks of ice. His eyes are bloodshot and hard on hers. His expression is pained, but his words are resolute: "Forget it. Do whatever you want."

"Don't I always," she shoots back, feeling the back of her eyes sting. "Me, the stupid, flighty, bullheaded one. I know what you think of me, Parker," she says, before he can interrupt, "I've always known it. And maybe in the past I've deserved it but this is different—I _know_ Harry, I know him, and he would never hurt me. He may be angry right now, and confused, but he is good. He's a good man, Peter."

"I'm not—I'm not calling you stupid," says Peter, with an almost imperceptible flinch at the last line of her little speech. "I just think that—you knew Harry, the way he was. Not the way he is now."

"And how do you know, then?" MJ challenges him. "You're so cryptic and vague. Tell me, then. Just spit it out already. How do you know better than I do?"

Peter opens his mouth to answer, and stops short. MJ does not let him recover, holding her ground, even as the sleet pelts at her back. She is so cold that her forehead is growing numb and her feet are two rigid, painful blocks of ice, but she will not back down, the words tearing through her brain: _Because you're Spiderman. _

It's the first time she's let herself think it, really consciously and deliberately think it to herself. She feels her chest constrict in a sudden irrational panic: she wants to know, but she doesn't. It's been the problem all along. It makes so much sense, a frightening and terrible amount of sense, even though she doesn't want to believe it's true.

The late nights. Gwen's worrying, her nagging, her tears. The half-assed explanations and uncountable absences. Even in _college_. MJ tries to backtrack in her mind—how long has Spiderman even been around? Wasn't she only seventeen when he stopped Connors from terrorizing the city?

She is breathing, hard, waiting for him to answer her. She knows he won't admit it. That's the worst part: if it's true, then he doesn't trust her, and never has. If it's true, then he had years to say something, years of living in the very same apartment with her that he could have told her the truth and chose not to.

Gwen must have known. It's impossible that she hadn't. MJ has been so adamant about pushing it out of her head, and so successful at it, that it hasn't even occurred to her until now that Gwen must have been involved every step of the way. MJ feels her heart seize with a strange mixture of empathy and despair: she now knows what it is like to love Peter, and be terrified for him—she now knows that Gwen had to live with that fear every day she spent with him. And she also knows that it's a fear she doesn't even have the right to. Peter doesn't want her to be any part of his world, or else he wouldn't be so bent on sending her away.

Maybe Peter plans on say something back to her, but he takes too long, and MJ can't take one more second of this cold.

"Good night, Peter," she says, starting to walk away from him.

And that may have just been the end of it, if a particularly terrible gust of wind hadn't chosen that moment to blow her umbrella so far back that it flipped inside out, and sent MJ reeling backwards to keep it gripped in her hand. The heel of her shoe snaps and she plummets to the ground, feeling her ankle twist unpleasantly in the process, and she feels a momentary flash of dread as she feels her body near the pavement. She knows without wanting to that Peter will catch her. She is almost disappointed when he does, because it only serves to confirm her suspicions further.

"Shit," MJ exclaims, as Peter helps her hobble to her feet. The umbrella is gone, somewhere down the street by now. The sad heel of her shoe is stuck in a grate about a foot behind her.

"Are you alright?" Peter asks.

It always feels like she is her clumsiest and most inadequate whenever he is around. "I'm fine," she says stubbornly, shaking his hands off her shoulders. She hobbles a step forward and her ankle twinges painfully. She purses her lips to keep from exclaiming any more profanities.

"You're not going to get very far," says Peter, still hovering a little hesitantly at her side.

"My apartment is ten blocks away. I'll be fine," she says through her teeth.

For a moment she doesn't hear him say anything, and is both relieved and stung that he has decided to leave. Then when she sneaks a glance at her side she sees that he is still there, and wearing an exasperated expression. "You can't walk around like that," he says. "Come on." He wraps an arm around her shoulders, in an attempt to steady her.

It is clear that she isn't going to make it ten blocks like this, especially with the way the sleet is picking up. She looks out toward the street and there isn't a taxi in sight. They take a few unsteady steps, and she is painfully aware of Peter's arm around her, both touched by the gesture and humiliated by it. It is a searing kind of feeling, so strong that she thinks she might not be able to bear it if he stays or if he leaves.

"I'll just—hail a taxi," she finally blubbers, because she can't stand the silence, or his kindness.

"There aren't any." Inexplicably, he looks up, toward a building half a block away. "Here. Jump on my back, it'll be faster."

"What?" The rain is still slick and cold but she still feels her cheeks burn against the spray. "What?—No."

"I'm not going to drop you," he says impatiently. "Come on. Ditch the shoes."

She isn't going to do it. It would be too intimate, too awkward, especially when that closeness would mean the world to her and nothing to him. But the thought of standing in this cold for one more unnecessary second, even to argue with him, wins out. She peels her shoes off her feet and says, "Are you sure—"

He hoists her up before she can finish asking, and starts walking as if there isn't any weight on him at all. The whole situation is so ridiculous that she almost laughs out loud. But the pressure of his hands holding her up and her legs around his mid-section sucks the air out of her, and all she can do is duck her head down and mutter, "You can't do this for ten blocks."

"I live right up the road."

"Oh," is all MJ can think of to say. Because he hasn't really invited her, or asked if she even wants to be there, which makes her a little bit happy. It reminds her of the way they used to be—informal and casual, just coexisting in their separate little worlds with Gwen. In any case it is better than whatever has been going on between them since MJ arrived.

They amble on for a short block, but it seems to take a lifetime. MJ wills herself not to think, but her face is so close to the back of his neck that she can't help but imagine resting her head on it, or running her hands through his messy wet hair. She feels unsure, almost brand new, like she has never had these thoughts about a boy before. Motions that she is so familiar with, from Harry and countless other boys she has flirted with in the past, now seem foreign and confusing. Even if Peter reciprocated her feelings, how would she even know how to love him?

There is a door wedged between two businesses that Peter deftly grabs a key card to, letting it swing open. The hit the warmth of the tiny lobby, freezing and dripping water all over the tiles. Peter slowly eases her back down on her feet, but not before the warmth brings out the smell of him, some sort of shampoo or soap that he uses that MJ remembers with an aching familiarity.

They're both shivering, breathing hard from the rain. Peter punches the button to summon the elevator.

"Thanks," says MJ, her lips feeling like rubber.

Peter just shrugs. Maybe she is imagining it as they step into the poorly-lit elevator but he looks a little sheepish, too.

They are silent on the ride up, and on the walk down the hall, when Peter leads her down a narrow hallway to a tiny studio apartment where he must live by himself. She wonders how he can afford it, but doesn't ask. It's nothing pretty. The walls are bare and full of dings and scratches from previous tenants, the carpet is an ugly mustard color, and the place is practically devoid of furniture besides a mattress on the floor, a folding chair, and the old sagging couch from the apartment they all used to share. The window looks out to the street. Even from here MJ can hear the sounds of the city, the car horns and sirens and random shouts of passerby.

"Here."

MJ looks up and sees that Peter is offering her a t-shirt and some old gym shorts. She takes them, not fully understanding.

"There should be a clean towel under the sink in the bathroom, if you want to dry off," he says, nodding toward the door for the bathroom.

"Th-thanks," she says again.

It is bewildering, to be here in this place that belongs to him, and only him. It is the first real glimpse she has seen of Peter on his own: without Gwen, without his aunt, without even MJ. Even the bathroom is pretty lackluster, with the essentials all sloppily lined up on the counter, with a sink that looks like it hasn't been washed in days and a toilet with the seat still up. She finds a towel under the sink and sets to wringing out her hair first. Now that it's so long it always hangs like a wet curtain and drips all over everything.

She peels her wet dress off and hangs it up with her coat on the shower rack. Her underwear and bra are still soaked, but these are Peter's clothes, so she keeps them on anyway. She swims in the t-shirt and has to pull the drawstrings on the shorts as tight as they can go, and it's functional enough, even if her fingers and toes are still numb and white from the cold.

When she steps back into the main room, something has changed, in a way that MJ is too nervous to fully acknowledge. His eyes glance up at her in the doorway for just a moment, but then looks away, too quickly, like he doesn't want to be caught. He has seen more of her bare skin than this, hasn't he? But there is something different now. The energy of the room is magnetized, like every second is heavy and counts for something. She just stands there for a moment, staring at him, at the dry clothes he has changed into and the couch he is sitting on.

"This is a nice—"

"I can make coffee—"

"—apartment you've got."

Neither was apparently expecting the other to speak. MJ shuffles her weight between her good ankle and the twisted one and nods. "Alright."

"I don't have tea or hot chocolate or anything. Just normal coffee."

"That's fine," she says, remembering that it was Gwen who didn't like coffee, and wondering if Peter is now thinking of that, too.

He gets up from the couch and pulls two mugs out of a cabinet for them. She notices that he is still sitting on the right end of the couch where he used to. She takes her place on the left, and when Peter sits back down and hands her a mug, they both leave the middle cushion empty, where Gwen used to sit.

"So how long have you had this place?" MJ asks. She wraps her hands around the mug and pulls her knees up to her chin for warmth. It is a strange kind of homecoming, sitting on this couch again. She is thankful for it.

Peter shrugs. He has always been a shrugger, but now it seems to come at the beginning of every utterance he makes. "Maybe a year. I'm not sure."

She sags further into the couch, trying to relax. It's only Peter. He doesn't care if her face doesn't have on any make-up or if her hair is all tangled and gross, so why get bent out of shape over nothing? "It's a nice location," she says, sounding boring even to herself.

"Hmm."

She takes a sip of her coffee. It's bitter and unappetizing, but she doesn't want to seem prissy by asking for sugar. The conversation is so stilted that she feels like an intruder even though he practically dragged her up here. She thinks about telling him she should leave, and get out with some shred of dignity while she can, but as if on cue a streak of lightning cracks across the sky and illuminates the room, followed by a rumble so loud it practically makes the couch shudder.

"Yikes," she says. "Never had thunder like that in Chicago."

Peter still isn't looking at her, but says into his mug, "So that's where you went?"

MJ is surprised he is bothering to ask, since he didn't seem to care at all before. "Yeah."

She can sense him frowning. "I don't understand. Why Chicago?" Even he must know her well enough to know she doesn't have any family outside of New York.

"Why not?" she says, trying to sound flippant and adventurous, the way she did in the old days. But it's not appropriate here, somehow. Peter knows her too well and the circumstances of her departure were too bleak. "Honestly? Because it was the first flight I could catch out of the city."

Peter nods. "I thought you might have left that same day. You know. A lot later, when I had time to think about it."

"I'm sorry if you tried to reach me," she says. "I dropped my phone and then I just … left it. I don't know why."

"I didn't try to reach you," he says.

MJ tucks a strand of wet hair behind her ear. Of course he hadn't. She is embarrassed by her presumption that he would have looked for her at all.

"I just knew you were gone," he amends, because he must have realized how it sounded. "I don't know how, but I just figured you were even before Harry came knocking down the door asking where you were. And when you didn't show up to the funeral …"

"Ah." MJ stares into the murky coffee. "I'm sorry," she mumbles.

"No," says Peter, shaking his head. "Don't be." He takes a long sip of his drink and blinks like there is something in his eye, or he is searching for the correct thing to say. Finally he says carefully, "We all have our own way of grieving. And it was good that you left. One less person to worry about."

"It was selfish of me," she says. She can admit it to herself a hundred times but somehow admitting it to Peter, whose opinion matters more than her own, brings the relief of confession that nothing else ever could. "I didn't say a word to Harry. And I lied to you. Harry and I—we were going to leave for Los Angeles together that day."

"I know," Peter says quietly.

His acceptance, the patience with which he acknowledges this, breaks her heart a little. He knew she was weak before she knew herself. He knew she had no intention of moving in with them all along. It makes her want to live up to the standard he set for her. "But what you don't know—" There is a sting springing into her eyes. She wills it away, hugging the coffee mug to her chest. "What you don't know is that I was going to leave him. I was calling him to tell him it was over. And instead, he—he told me Gwen was dead."

It's happening again. The tears are leaking down her face, unstoppable and silent, like she is a cup somebody tipped over. She doesn't bother swiping at her eyes. Peter isn't looking at her and she doesn't want to draw attention to it. What she wants is to understand him, and for him to understand her. Because even though they are sitting closer to each other than they have in almost two years, she has never felt further away from him, or more confused by his intentions.

"Where were you?" she asks. Her voice is thick, the way people sound when they're drunk. "When you found out. Where were you?"

The room is eerily quiet. It's another one of those moments that she is testing him: she is wondering if he will lie to her, and what kind of lie it will be. He jerks his shoulders and shifts on the couch, and she thinks it's a gesture of offense, and that he won't answer her. Feeling guilty for pushing him, she shirks away just slightly. She shouldn't have asked. She has no right.

She is surprised when he speaks.

"I was … "

She feels her entire body tense. She has never seen Peter cry before, and she thinks by the sound of his voice that he just might be. She doesn't say a word, hardly even breathing, afraid it will stop him from continuing.

"It doesn't matter." The words are bitter and hollow. "I couldn't save her."

"Peter—"

"Just—just—please, Mary Jane."

She looks up and his eyes are red and streaming. She is expecting it, but isn't prepared for it. He looks so suddenly desperate, his misery so contained and raw, that she is struck speechless. She feels responsible for it. She is the one who blasted back into his life, who reminded him of everything he lost. And now he is staring at her, looking helpless, looking like he might actually need her, and she has no idea how to help him.

Gwen would know. Gwen was the soother, the one who had the sense and the kind words, the gentle logic and unmatchable patience. MJ tries to think of what Gwen would do, but the problem is, she isn't Gwen. Hasn't that always been her problem? She is not the one that Peter loves, not the girl who has stood by his side through all of this. She will never understand the way Gwen did—she is inferior, inadequate, small.

But still, she hurts the same way he does. It is the only strand that truly connects them—the painful memories, the regret and the exhaustion of their own grief.

She sets her mug down on the floor and leans in, sitting in the place where Gwen used to sit, hesitating only for a moment. If he is going to stop her, he has the chance. He doesn't. She's too close to him to stop herself now. Feeling as if she has thrown herself into a riptide, she leans until their bodies press together, and sets a hand on the back of his neck, resting his head on her shoulder.

For a moment they are both so tense and reluctant that MJ almost pulls away, but then Peter lets the weight of his head settle on her, and hears him let out a breath.

She doesn't know what to do, but the rest of her seems to, even without the logical thought that comes with it. She feels her hand stroke the back of his neck, feels herself absorbing his sadness into her own. She sees now that there is no understanding for them to reach: they are both here together, stuck in a shared blame and grief, both desperately wanting for something that they can't have.

"It's not your fault," she hears herself saying.

It feels important that she says this, and it must be, because she feels Peter shudder, hears him inhale sharply at the words. He sinks further into her embrace, and reaches back, his arms around her back as he buries his face into the crook of her neck.

"If I had just—if I had just—" His words are barely comprehensible through the fabric of her shirt. She can feel him shaking under her palms "God, how could I have—have _known_—"

"Shh," she says. "It's not your fault." She thinks about that newspaper headline, about the autopsy and the unanswered question that will haunt Peter for the rest of his life. "It's _not_," she says again, because it is nobody's fault but the Goblin's.

His hands ball into fists around the fabric of her shirt, and then he tightens his arms around her, as if she is the last thing keeping him tethered to earth. She lets him, and mutters things in his ear, trying to comfort him. She is so unused to this, to being someone dependable and strong, but it feels natural with him. She feels like he is a part of her; she knows just what to say, because they are the same things she would want to hear herself.

Eventually his breathing evens out and the tremors cease. Still, she doesn't move, even when her muscles ache with the effort and her arm goes numb and tingly wedged between him and the couch. She expects him to pull away, to look embarrassed and make some excuse to ask her to leave, but after a long while she realizes that he has fallen asleep.

She allows herself the barest of smiles. She isn't good at a lot of things, at least not the things that count. But she is glad she could be there for Peter. It is the first time in a long time that she has felt worthwhile to somebody, like she is capable of making a difference.

Still, she doesn't want him to wake up like this, tangled in each other's arms. She knows what that would do to him, the kind of guilt he would feel. And honestly, if she ever wants to pursue Peter, she doesn't want it to work out because she took advantage of him at his weakest. She wants him to want her for _her_, not just because she is there, not just because she shares his grief. So slowly and painstakingly, she untangles herself from him, careful not to jilt him out of his slumber.

He is out like a rock, it turns out. Even curled into the awkward position she left him in, his entire body seems to radiate an exhaustion so deep that it would take a hell of a lot more than her weight shifting on the couch to wake him. She wonders how long it has been, between his grief and his late night activities, since he slept through a night.

She stands up and watches him for a little while. It is rare that she ever got to take long looks at him, without worrying that he would catch her in the act and guess her intentions. Now, though—at least for these few moments—he is all hers. The curve of his unshaven jaw, the hint of defined bicep under his shirt sleeve, the tangle of hair on his head. She thinks she might just love every part of him, even the ones she has never considered: his beaten up toenails, his thick brows, the calloused skin of his fingers. The smell of him, the warmth of him. Just the comfort of knowing that at least for now, he is alive, and safe, and close to her, because these are all things that she used to take for granted.

The rain still hasn't stopped. She doesn't want to leave, anyway. There isn't much room for her on the couch and it would feel a little too much like sharing a bed with him if she crashed there, so she decides to sleep on his bed, knowing that he wouldn't mind. She sleeps on top of the bedspread just in case. She is so tired that she won't miss the blankets.

She rests there and watches him on the couch until her eyes are so weary that they start to slide shut against her will. The rain pelts the window, the rhythm of it lulling her to sleep. All her life she has wanted to feel safe, to feel protected. When she met Harry she thought she found that feeling, so she called it love. But she understands now, as she listens to Peter's light snoring across the room, that she was wrong. Love isn't just about her own safety, but his: she knows in a way that she never knew with anyone else that she would do anything for him, even give her own life if it came to that.

The thunder rolls on outside as she finally succumbs to sleep, thinking of how well she could love him, how unselfishly and wholeheartedly she could love him, if only he would let her.

* * *

I'm touched that some of you guys miss my author's notes! The truth is my life has just been very boring lately. I'm not famous yet, if anybody can believe it. And to counteract my subsequent ten pound weight gain from the past two months (imagine how that happened! working in a shop that exclusively sells BREAD!), I have started that satanic Fast Metabolism diet that makes you go gluten, caffeine, wheat, sugar and dairy-free. I'm on day six (kill me) and I highly suggest it, if you want to spontaneously orgasm at the SMELL of someone else's pizza. But if you want to feel like a human, then find something else. (As for whether it's working or not, I can't tell. It occurs to me that everyone I know is too poor to own a scale.)

Also, because I have nothing to brag about in the realm of personal success, I'm going to brag brag brag that Stephen Colbert is speaking at my college graduation. Errybody can SUCK ITTT.

Oh, wait! I did get a fifty cent raise at my awful terrible demeaning soul-sucking cashier job (was that enough adjectives?). I wasn't supposed to tell anyone, though. WOOPS.


	16. Chapter 16

**Perpendicular**

MJ wakes up the next morning before Peter does. She hoists herself up and experimentally sets the ankle she twisted last night down on the carpet. It twinges noticeably, but it's nothing a little ibuprofen won't fix in time for the dance numbers tonight. She hobbles over to the bathroom to wash her face—she looks disastrous at best, with her hair in mismatched knots and waves and her nose bright red on her pale face. She slaps some water on her skin and finds her damp clothes still on the shower rod where she hung them. She shoves back on the dress even though it's chilly—it's only a ten block walk to her apartment from here.

Peter is awake and rubbing his eyes by the time she gets out of the bathroom.

"Good morning," she says as casually as she can, reminding herself to smile. She doesn't want to make anything about last night feel awkward.

It turns out she doesn't have to, because Peter has that covered. He stares at her like she has crawled in through the window. "You stayed the night?" he asks.

"Um. Yeah," she says, wrapping a hand around her elbow. She stands in the doorway of the bathroom. "I mean, it was raining. And my shoes, and all."

"Oh," says Peter. He blinks the sleep out of his eyes and runs a hand through his hair. "Huh."

"And you fell asleep," she reminds him, because she doesn't like the blame he seems to be assigning here.

"I guess so," he says uneasily, as if the details are foggy to him.

MJ adjusts the straps of the still damp dress, wishing he would maybe smile or even look at her, or do something to make this less uncomfortable. He doesn't. He gets up from the couch and roots around for his phone in his pocket, checking the time, not even acknowledging her.

"You probably … have some place to be," MJ says.

"Yeah." Peter nods, altogether too eager to agree with her on this point. "I have photos to give to Jameson. I mean, if you want coffee, or anything … I don't really have anything else but cereal, so …"

"No, no, I'm—I'm busy, too." She actually can't remember to save her life where she is supposed to be today, the embarrassment of this situation is so overwhelming. "I'd better head out."

She shoves her shoes back on, the broken one and the unbroken one, figuring she should be able to get by if she can hail a taxi out on the street. She checks her purse to make sure she has everything with her, and then starts walking for the door. Every step that she takes she feels a little bit more uneasy, because he should say something, shouldn't he? One of them should. Not necessarily to acknowledge last night, but at the very least to acknowledge that they're _friends_, or at least normally functioning humans who say pleasantries like hello and goodbye. She reaches the door and hesitates, looking back at him.

His nose is buried in his laptop. For a moment she just stares at him, disbelieving.

"I'll see you around?" she finally says, her cheer more than a little forced.

He glances up just briefly. "Yeah."

She doesn't look back when she shuts the door behind her. Waiting for the elevator she is still a little numb, trying to process his behavior. She avoids looking at her reflection in the elevator mirror. Is she ghastly? Is she hideous? What on earth would make Peter react so weirdly?

As she leaves his apartment building she feels the embarrassment fade, quickly replaced by anger. She didn't invite herself into Peter's apartment—he didn't even ask when he took her there, so it was nobody's fault but his that she was there in the first place. And as for last night, he is just as responsible for the closeness as she was. He had every opportunity to pull away from her, every opportunity to collect himself and ask her to leave, but he was the one who fell asleep and essentially left her with no choice but to stay.

Screw him. She is done. _Finished_. No more pining after stupid Peter Parker, with the sulky mixed signals nobody in their right mind could interpret.

It's a rash declaration to make to herself, one that she is sure won't hold, but right now it makes her feel better. She glances up the street toward her building and decides she is better off heading the one block back to the theater and putting on a different pair of shoes—surely someone will be there to let her in.

She knocks and waits for someone manning the security desk to unlock the door for her. She'll just never talk to him again. It'll be easy enough, because when would she ever even see him, really? Sure, he lives near the theater where she works but it's been months and she only ever saw him out in the city that one time, practically halfway across the city. So she'll endure the accidental run-ins every now and again. It won't be so bad. At least it will be less infuriating than waking up to him treating her like a stranger and looking desperate to get her out of his apartment.

The door opens. "Thanks," she mutters to whoever let her in, her eyes not quite adjusted to the darkness.

"Anytime, dollface."

MJ scowls. "What are you even doing here at nine in the morning?" she asks Darien.

His smirk is practically dripping with smugness. "My, oh my, Cinderella," he says, looking her up and down, lingering on the broken heel. "No wonder you've rejected my generous offers. Apparently somebody else is going to town on you in the—"

"Save it," MJ snaps. "I'm not in the mood."

He follows her to her dressing room, a few feet behind her, like she is leading a parade. "Aw, come on. There's no shame in it. Even ice queens need a little sexing up every now and then."

She grits her teeth and keeps walking.

"I can tell whoever you banged last night did a real thorough job, or you wouldn't look like you just went through a hurricane—but I'm just saying," he goes on, and she doesn't even have to turn around to know that his eyebrows are wagging—"I bet it's nothing compared to what I could do to you."

She stops a few feet short of her dressing room. She is so irritated, so exhausted, so demeaned by her encounter with Peter that literally one more crack from Darien and she is afraid she might just turn around and smack the grin off of his ridiculously symmetrical face. She closes her eyes, and takes a breath, trying to calm down, but it doesn't work.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" she says instead, wheeling around to look at him. "You're like—a tick, or something. Does this actually _work_ for you? Are there girls in the world so desperate that you actually get away with this shit?"

He winks at her. "Don't lie. It's working a little bit with you right now."

"Ugh," she scoffs, kicking off the heels and stalking into her dressing room.

He follows her in. "You can undress if you want. I promise I'll keep my eyes shut. At least I'll try—"

"Get out," she yaps.

"Aw. You don't mean it."

"I do. Get out—get _out_," she says, her voice cracking. She has reached her very last nerve and they both know it. The weight of everything that has happened in the last twelve hours suddenly crashes on her, and she is so disappointed, so confused and tired and angry that she feels raw with emotion, just one wrong look away from splintering.

Something in Darien's face changes. He takes a step back and almost looks sorry.

"Please," she says, quietly this time.

He nods, giving her one last lingering look, but there is nothing predatory about it this time. She has never considered Darien long enough to see him drop the act. She wonders if this is just another one of his little tricks—looking so sensitive all of a sudden, like he might actually be concerned with her welfare. He has proven himself to be such a sleaze that it probably is. The trouble is, it's working.

He is about to leave when she takes a step toward him and he stops, frowning at her in confusion. She reaches past him and slams the door shut. Then she yanks the fabric of his shirt, the way she has seen heroines do it in the movies, and draws his face close to hers.

She has kissed Darien hundreds of times before, but never like this: onstage they are chaste, two teenagers in love, but right now it is desperate and primal and decidedly adult. Their lips seem to smash into each other and she's not even feeling it, not even feeling anything. His hand reaches for her breast almost instantaneously. She doesn't pull away, doesn't even react to it. He is here, he is present and convenient and attracted to her, which is, right now, enough.

It escalates quicker than she thought it would, but this is what she is asking for, isn't it? She feels his hands around her ribcage, and then he lifts her up like a rag doll and sets her on the dressing room's make-up counter, so carelessly that her make-up bag and all the supplies crash to the floor with an unholy clamor. She squeezes her eyes shut and kisses him, feels his hands start to roam around her body, quick and sure and practiced. He knows just where he is supposed to touch and just how to touch it. She momentarily lets her thoughts drift to the countless other girls he has already done this to, maybe even a few doors down the hall, maybe even in this same room; but then it's gone. Everything is gone, just touching and reaching and hoping that she can make herself forget the sting of rejection, the wariness in Peter's eyes.

Darien leans down and starts kissing her neck and she gasps a little in surprise. The exposed skin from the panel in her dress hits the cold surface of the mirror as he rocks her backward. She is so desperate for desperation, searching for the rush, for the thoughtlessness, for the carnal and crazy and _different_. She wants to feel this. She _wants_ to feel this.

Darien pulls away, just for a moment, about to pull out some ridiculous smolder she is sure. She anticipates it, but not fast enough. His expression droops almost comically when he looks at her face.

"Are you—crying?" he asks.

She stares at him, and touches her face. Her heartbeat is so loud in this tiny room.

"Jesus," she mutters, hopping off the counter and pushing past him.

She grabs a pair of shoes off the floor before he can find any words. She feels like she has just witnessed a car wreck, or been part of one, and is now stumbling into the side of the road. Ducking her head down, she shoves the shoes on her feet and walks purposefully toward the exit, swiping at her eyes, unable to believe her own stupidity.

What the hell just came over her? _Darien?_ Of all the people in this city she could use for a pity screw, she was about to turn to _him?_

He doesn't come after her. Who would? For Christ's sake, now she has even repulsed the most repulsive man on the planet. She slams the exit door open with her shoulder. Ten blocks to her apartment. Ten blocks and nothing more. Can she even trust herself to make it that far without doing anything else that is certifiably deranged?

It seems ridiculously warm outside now, or maybe it's just her face, glowing like a heat lamp. This is completely unacceptable behavior. She can't blame intoxication, or the recklessness of youth, or anything but herself—she is a perfect sober, supposedly sane twenty-seven-year-old woman now. Not a wishy-washy undergrad, or directionless in her early twenties. She knows better. She knows better than this. But _Peter_—

She stops on the street. There he is. There he _is_, with his stupid messenger bag, and his stupid headphones on, and his stupid hipster sneakers coming untied.

"Are you _kidding_ me?" she exclaims.

Peter sees her approaching but evidently doesn't hear her. He pulls one of the headphones out of his ear, looking bewildered, and says, "Oh. Hey, Mary Jane."

She feels stupid for stopping. "Hey," she says tersely. She looks behind her; Darien hasn't followed.

When she looks back Peter is following her gaze down the street. "What're you … ?"

She doesn't let him finish the question, waving at him as firmly as possible and continuing on her way. She can't even let herself feel the additional mortification of running into him on the street post-almost-romp with Darien. It's like she is so slippery with embarrassment already that this just rolls right off her back, unable to latch on.

"Hey, wait—where are you going?"

She keeps walking. "Home," she calls back.

"Hey," he calls again, and she cringes when she hears those goofy sneakers slapping against the pavement behind her. "Hey, wait."

"What?" she says, unable to contain her exasperation.

He doesn't seem at all surprised by her attitude. In fact, he looks a little sheepish. "I didn't mean to—this morning, I mean, I didn't mean to—I'm sorry, I wasn't really awake, I guess."

Her jaw tightens. She isn't quite sure how to hold herself, whether she should look indignant or casual, so instead it feels like every bone in her body is just rigid with miscommunication.

"I figured," she says, not quite letting him off the hook, but feeling a reluctant swell of gratitude that he is at least acknowledging his behavior from this morning.

He clears his throat, fiddling with the straps of his camera. "I forgot to tell you," he says. "I, uh—I saw your show."

It takes MJ a moment to fully process this. "You saw—you mean the one I'm in right now?" she says, pointing behind her, where by the grace of God there is still no Darien poking his head out.

He nods.

"When?" she says self-consciously, trying to rehash the last few nights of the performances, to remember if there were anything remarkable or unremarkable about them.

"A few nights ago," he says. He is still poking around at the camera, she suspects for no real purpose in particular except that for some reason it has always been awkward whenever the two of them have taken some sort of active interest in the other person's life.

"Well?" she asks. "What'd you think?"

Finally he looks up at her, the beginnings of a smirk on his face. "That was a criminal amount of glitter."

She reaches out and nudges him. It is such a relief to have something this pedestrian to talk about. "I meant of me, you dope."

He rolls his eyes a bit, in that affectionate of-course-you-need-praising kind of way, and says, "You were great."

She's smiling. She can't help it. It feels like this whole morning she's been living in a pinball machine but right now the rest of it doesn't seem to matter. "I can't believe you actually saw it," she says, which is something she should probably keep to herself, but she is so genuinely surprised that she can't hold it in. "I mean—since you want me to leave, and all."

Peter shrugs. "I figured I'd better see what all the fuss was about."

"Well," she says. The two of them stand there, and she feels oddly shy. When he doesn't say anything right away, she points down the street and says, "I better go home. And you know, get a shower and everything. The show must go on."

"Huh. Yeah," says Peter, with one of those uncommitted half-smiles of his.

She waves her good-bye and walks down the street, her nerves settling, feeling like she has just biked without brakes down a scary hill and finally reached the end. She wonders if Peter is watching her go. She is about to turn around, to see if he's still there, but his voice beats her to the punch:

"Mary Jane?"

As a result she turns around too quickly, skidding on her heels like an over-eager puppy. "Yeah?"

"Uh—well—Aunt May saw your picture in the paper, and she knows you're in town. She was asking if you wanted to come to dinner sometime. I mean, if you want to, if you're not too busy," Peter says. He is rambling a bit, but recovers by raising his eyebrows and adding, "I mean, since it's clear you're not going to leave."

"Pretty clear," she agrees, trying to sound amiable. "And I'd love to."

Peter nods. "Great. I'll, uh, call you. Whenever she picks a night."

"You don't have my number anymore," she reminds him. "Is yours the same?"

"Yeah."

"Cool." The conversation could not be any more perfunctory, but she finds herself struggling to summon even the most robotic of social interactions, or even put one foot in front of the other in a regular fashion. It's like his gaze is a magnifying glass just ready to pick up on a mistake. "I'll call you so you'll have mine."

"Sounds like a plan. I'll see you around?" he says, and this time when he says it there is some hopeful lilt to it, unlike the detached way he said it this morning.

"Yeah," she says.

As soon as she starts walking away she pulls out her phone. The only reason she has Peter's number memorized is that she used to use it constantly to bother him about where Gwen was, whenever she was somewhere in a lab or at a conference and couldn't answer her phone. The sensation of pressing the pattern of numbers is so familiar, but now has its own bare amount of guilt assigned to it. She is not calling for Gwen. She is calling for herself.

Peter picks up on the first ring. "I'm guessing it's you."

She bites at the slightly manic smile still curling on her lips as she walks. It is unexpectedly nice that he has called her "you" instead of her name, as if they still know each other well, as if they haven't spent so much guarded and heavy time apart.

"That it is," she tells him. She turns around to see if he's still on the street corner where she left him, but he is long gone.

"I'll call you, Mary Jane."

She is about to tell him good-bye, but she somehow anticipates him hanging up before she can get that far. She shoves her phone back into her purse and sets her sights on the building where she lives. It is crisp out, the way the city is in the fall after a hard rain, as if maybe for a moment it could slick all the bad parts of it away. It feels hopeful. It feels a little bit like home.

* * *

When she unlocks the apartment door, the first thing she sees is Harry, sitting on the couch. She stands there, his eyes meeting hers in a hard line, her keys still dangling from the doorknob.

"Um," she says, the smile sliding off her face. "Hi."

Harry's gaze shifts across the room, and MJ follows it to Lexie, who is romping toward her in a cropped t-shirt and the skimpiest excuse for pajama shorts MJ has ever seen. Her roommate skids to a halt once she reaches MJ and says, her eyes overly-bright, "Someone didn't come home last night! So spill."

"Uh—"

There is a painful and excruciating few seconds where MJ has no idea what to say, and they will cost her. Lexie is oblivious to it all—oblivious to the withdrawn and furious expression on Harry's face, to the tremor in MJ's voice, to the stupendously awkward hesitation and silence that has settled in the room.

"It's not like that," MJ mumbles, hoping she is loud enough for Harry to hear.

"Aw, come on, don't be a buzz kill. Oh, this is Harry, by the way," says Lexie, bounding over to him and landing in his lap as weightless as a bunny might. He obligingly puts an arm around her, and she does this cutesy little thing where she rubs her nose against the stubble of his cheek that is so reminiscent of an actual bunny that MJ almost chokes on a laugh. "Harry, this is my roommate Jane."

Harry looks at her, as if he is considering her for the first time and is not at all impressed by what he sees. She suddenly is all too aware of the state of herself: wrinkled, wet clothes, tangled hair, strung out and exhausted face. It probably really does look like she has just walked in after some drunken one night-stand. She has the feeling he is going to find some way to punish her as if she just did.

"Jane, huh." His voice is measured and bored.

"Yes," she says tightly. "Nice to meet you."

The melody to a Spice Girls song starts blaring through the apartment. "Oh!" Lexie squeals, in a voice that is approximately a thousand decibels higher than the human voice that she uses when she's just with the girls. "That's my mom. She just flew in from like two weeks in Europe, I gotta take this. Be right baaaaack," she sing-songs, picking up the phone and pecking Harry on the cheek. She practically sashays out of the apartment, giving MJ and Harry and unfortunately great view of her mostly-exposed ass.

"What are you _doing_ here?" MJ hisses, the moment the door shuts behind her.

Harry's expression is some mixture between furious and smug. "What does it look like I'm doing, _Jane?_"

MJ sets down her purse and shoves her feet out of her shoes. "You can't just—you can't just—what is this, anyway? What are you trying to do here?"

"Not everything in the world revolves around you," Harry says, in a voice so cool and unrecognizable that she can hardly believe it is coming from this man she once knew so well. "We're through. I understand that. So it's really none of your business, who I decide to spend my time with."

She hates this. She hates that she is so flustered, even a little bit panicked, when Harry is so calm and in control.

"Of all the girls in the city—my _roommate?_"

"Like I said," says Harry, and she swears there is just a hint of a smirk, and a cocky tone in his voice. "It's really none of your business."

"It seems like it is," she snaps. "And if you think for one second that hanging around here is going to make me change my mind, you're wrong. This is stupid, what you're doing. Immature and stupid."

"Immature and stupid? Like whatever you were up to last night?" he counters.

It is alarming how fast they have dissolved into childish, spiteful versions of themselves. She should come clean and tell him that she wasn't just seeing some guy last night, that it wasn't a one night stand or whatever scandalous, hair-raising thing he is no doubt imagining right now. It wouldn't fix everything, but it would at the very least calm him down, do something to cut through the bitter tension in the room.

Instead she finds herself mocking him by saying in a prissy voice, "It's really none of your business."

He doesn't react, but his face boils bright red, giving him away. "I should have figured. God only knows what you were up to before you met me. Or what you've been up to since."

It's the kind of jibe that actually cuts her in some awful way. She never told Harry he was her first, because at the time it was embarrassing and she didn't want him to feel any pressure, or make a big deal out of it. She can even tell herself it isn't a big deal that she hasn't slept with anyone since. But now that he has made this accusation against her it all seems so unfair, that she gets no credit for this at all, that by committing herself to Harry for so long she has almost rendered herself incapable of being close to another man.

Besides the most inaccessible and disinterested one of all, that is.

She doesn't dignify his insult with an answer. Instead she stalks across the room, shutting her door and locking it behind her.

For a few moments she just stands there, still feeling stricken. She should do something. She feels the weight of her phone in her pocket, and wonders if she should call Peter. She wants to. She is sure, after the vehement warnings he has given her, that Peter would want her to. But she can't. Somehow it seems too needy, too pathetic. She can handle this herself.

She finally sinks into her bed, feeling the familiarity of her own mattress, her own pillows and sheets. There is something soothing about sleeping alone, about taking up as much space as she wants and not having to worry about waking someone else up. She closes her eyes and tells herself not to blow this out of proportion. Harry will get bored of this charade and leave. This will last a few days, tops.

There is no reason for her to feel unsafe. And yet somehow, as she is jarred out of her half-slumber by Lexie's shriek of a laugh echoing through the apartment and the sound of Harry's low snicker in return, she does.


	17. Chapter 17

**Perpendicular**

The first show after MJ and Darien's little incident is, surprisingly, uneventful. He shows up late so he has no opportunity to interact with her before the show, since the stage manager is ready to rip him a new one and anybody who has the authority to is yelling at him. She ducks out right after the performance, well ahead of when he usually ambles out of the stage door, and finishes signing autographs and taking pictures by the time the other actresses even start to leave.

She has been granted a reprieve, and allows herself some small bit of relief, optimistic that maybe this will all blow over. She goes back to the apartment, careful to make sure Harry isn't there, and takes her second long shower of the day, watching the glitter swirl down the drain. It will probably just be one of those awkward little blips—the ones that happen and never get spoken of again. Darien is probably every bit as embarrassed about it as she is, since she ran off the way she did.

Her roommates aren't home by the time she falls asleep, and she wakes up long before they do in the morning. She goes for an intentionally long run, weaving in nonsensical patterns around the city. She has some suspicion that Lexie brought Harry home last night, and if they are going to be romping around the living room in pajamas and bedhead all morning she would rather not have a front seat to the show. By the time she comes home it's almost noon, and she has the place to herself.

It isn't until Lizzie comes back around two that MJ braces herself. If Darien has yapped about her to everybody, she is about to find out now. But Lizzie gives her a cheery hello and starts unloading groceries from the corner market into their fridge, and if she knows anything about MJ's colossally embarrassing incident with Darien, she doesn't say a word.

"So?" asks Lizzie, cocking her hand on her hip. "You sleep a wink last night?"

"Yeah," says MJ. Truthfully she slept better last night than she has in weeks.

"Huh." Lizzie crinkles her nose. "You mean they didn't wake you up."

"Who didn't …" MJ runs a hand through her hair. "Oh."

"Yeah. It's like, we get it, you're getting some action and the rest of us are going to die alone. I can't decide what I wanted to do more, give them my emergency condom or use it to suffocate them both."

"Hmm."

Lizzie is waiting for a chuckle that doesn't come. There is an unease in the room, and MJ is too distracted to notice it for a few seconds. Eventually she offers up a smile, and Lizzie relaxes.

"Can't blame her, though," she says, her ponytail flicking behind her gracefully as she reaches to put more groceries high up on the shelf. "I mean, _damn_. Look at the guy. He walks in the living room and my pants fall off. And turns out he's totally loaded. His dad was like the head of some big company and super famous or something before he died."

There is literally nothing on earth MJ can think of more excruciatingly awkward than the conversation that is happening to her right now. She grits her teeth, trying to smile pleasantly even though it feels like her lips are stretching like a jackal's.

"Good for Lexie."

"Aw, admit it. You think he's hot stuff."

MJ purses her lips. She has a feeling Harry is just hotheaded enough to throw their whole past in her face at some point, and she also has a feeling at Lexie and Lizzie will become inextricably and messily a part of it. So she can't really justify nodding or shaking her head at the question, knowing that it will only be used against her in a matter of time.

"What, handsome and rich isn't your type?"

She thinks of Peter. Nearly broke, scuffy Peter, whose camera lens cap seemed to be perpetually coming loose, whose jeans were so worn out that there were beginnings of holes in the back pockets.

"I guess not."

* * *

A few weeks pass, and MJ feels like she is bracing herself for something, but cannot decide what.

Darien doesn't say a word to her, at least not about what happened in her dressing room. But that isn't to say that he doesn't sneak in a few dirty winks and gestures in her direction, and once during a show he even lightly bites her tongue—quickly enough that the audience doesn't see and MJ recovers before she gives it away, but hard enough that she wants to smack him in the face the moment her feet hit the curtains.

It is little more than a trivial concern, though, compared to what she comes home to every night. It seems like Harry is always on her couch in some state of undress. It's not like they don't have separate rooms, but Lexie and Harry seem to have made it their personal mission to be as visible and obnoxious as possible, which wouldn't be such a problem except that every time Lexie looks away even for a second, MJ feels Harry's eyes on her, trailing her with unforgiving judgment.

"Pass the salt, Mary Jane?" he asks, his voice deliberate and even cruel, one night over dinner.

He pretends not to notice the confused looks on her roommates' faces.

"Mary Jane?" Lexie echoes.

MJ passes him the salt without looking at him.

"Oh," he says. "Sorry, Jane. I don't know what came over me."

These little jabs become more and more frequent, and MJ avoids the apartment as much as she possibly can. The long runs get longer. She comes home from them with her fingers and toes white with November cold, her cheeks flaming red from the bite of the wind. She spends a lot of time practicing the dance numbers over and over again in the rehearsal space, even when they couldn't possibly be more perfect, because finding an excuse to be somewhere else in infinitely more comfortable than glancing up from her coffee to see Harry's unwelcome stare.

And while she lives in constant anticipation of Darien's and Harry's next moves, the most overwhelming cause of stress is, as always, Peter. She doesn't hear from him. After the first few days she resolves that she probably never will. It was a nice thought, the dinner invitation. Nothing more.

Still she lingers by his building. Or at least the idea of it. She walks fast once she is directly in front of it, but the blocks before and after she slows down her pace, checking the faces, listening to flow of traffic, waiting for something to happen.

It turns out the something she is waiting for happens near Thanksgiving. The show is dark that day but since their day off is sandwiched between two big performance days full of tourists, none of them can go home. She doesn't know whose idea it is for all of them to go out and get smashed the night before Thanksgiving, but she tags along because Lexie won't be there, which means Harry won't be, either.

It's been so long since the incident with Darien that even when he shows up, already drunk with a bunch of guys that MJ doesn't know, she doesn't imagine that he will say anything about it. It turns out she is perilously mistaken: halfway through the one cranberry vodka she has been nursing for the better part of an hour just to seem sociable, he slides on over to the bar next to her and says in a booming voice just loud enough for the cast members immediately near them to hear: "I've got an announcement to make."

MJ rolls her eyes.

"Hey! Hey everybody! Lisssten up."

She poises a foot on the floor, shifting her weight to get up from the bar, but Darien puts a hand on her shoulder. "No, no, stay, you gotta be here for this. You gotta tell 'em I'm not lyin'."

Only then does MJ realize what he is about to do, and in that split second she grits her teeth, grabs the back of his meaty shoulder and hisses, "Darien, what the _hell_ are you—"

"Guess who got a _piece _of _this action?_" he slurs.

The blood drains from her face. Everyone is looking at her and she can't think of a single thing to say to defend herself.

"That's right. Jane, the formidable ice queen herself! Pounces like a lionessss! Even she can't resist my charms."

"Oh, get over yourself," says MJ. She has already paid for the drink and is in a perfect position to just get up and leave, but she pauses just for a second to finish off the watered-down remains. She isn't sure why. Maybe because she likes the idea of it taking the sting of this away, or maybe because it will make her look more nonchalant about this whole thing, but it is sour as it goes down and she cringes, not expecting it.

Darien's face is red with alcohol, his smile broad and lazy. "Tell 'em where we did it, Jane, go on, tell 'em—"

"You're a _pig_," she says instead, and then turns to the few people who are listening and says, "and we didn't do anything."

She starts to leave and hears him practically whine, "Aw, come on, Jane, come _on_—don't be like that, it was _fun_, just loosen up and have some _fun_, would you—"

The two advantages she has on her side is that he is two times her size and approximately six times as drunk as she is, so she weaves through the crowded bar and finds the exit with ease while he is still stumbling back onto his feet.

"Taxi!" she calls, hailing one almost instantaneously. She gives him the address and sits in the back with her arms folded against her chest. She knew this would happen eventually. Now it is only a matter of time before everyone hears about it and knows that yes, she is just desperate and needy enough to try to hook up with the New York's sleaziest bachelor. She tells herself it doesn't matter—that after a week or so of the girls asking what he looks like naked and the gay men giving her "oh, honey" looks that it will fade into the background of the next slightly more interesting scandal—but right now she is angry. She is angry with Darien, angry with Harry, angry with herself.

But mostly, she is angry with Peter.

The driver stops in front of her apartment building and once she lets herself out she doesn't take the elevator to her floor, where Harry is undoubtedly waiting with her half-naked roommate. She hits the button for the top floor, and once she gets there she takes the narrow staircase and shoves the entire weight of her body several times against the door at the top until it slams open, leading to the roof.

It's even colder up here than it was down below. She has never been up here before—actually, she hasn't been on any kind of rooftop since that last night that she spent with Gwen, drinking wine and reminiscing the day before she died—but the view of the city is expansive, and the sky is so dark and starless that it feels like it could swallow the whole city up.

There is no good reason for her to be up here, so she struggles to find one. She tells herself it's because she can be alone up here, which is rare in this city when she is anywhere but her own room. When that doesn't work, she tells herself that it's because there is something calming about being so high above the bustling city, something escapist about the whole notion of a rooftop, but honestly she is terrified of heights and can't even dare go near the edge.

There is only one other reason she can think of, and it's a bitter truth to acknowledge: there is the slight but still existing chance that Spiderman might swing by.

She rubs her cheeks with her hands as if she can scrape off her own embarrassment. It is an immature, little girl kind of notion, like someone waiting for Santa Claus. But she is just so muddled and angry and she has nowhere else to be tonight, nobody who is wondering where she is or what she is up to.

She paces back and forth on the roof as close to the raised edges as she can without actually seeing the street. All week long her cast mates have lamented having to stay in the city for Thanksgiving, moaning about their family traditions and parade-watching and giant turkeys and pies, and all week long she has nodded at their misty-eyed complaints and pretended to understand.

She doesn't often feel sorry for herself about her family situation because it is much easier just to forget it ever happened, but now that she is standing here by herself in this odd and uncertain place, she indulges in a little self-pity. In the years past she has always gone to Gwen's, because even in the years after her father died, her mother hosted the hugest and most extravagant Thanksgiving dinners MJ had ever seen. It was impossible to feel left out in such a diverse and lively crowd.

And even though she spent the holidays by herself last year in Chicago, it aches in a much worse way now. It feels like everything and everybody she used to know is just out of reach. It is the first time that she lets herself acknowledge that it _hurts_, the way Harry has treated her these past few weeks. It is impossible not to let her self-esteem get inextricably tied to whatever he thinks of her, and she still remembers so fresh in her mind how she once considered him a kind of savior, a relieving and beautiful idea that she could be loved by someone smart, someone handsome, someone well-adjusted and kind. She has changed significantly in the past few years, enough to hold her own without needing that extra comfort anymore, but that doesn't mean that she can just ignore that this person who once meant the world to her now looks at her every day as if she is the scum of the earth.

After a while her feet start to ache from her heels and she slides them off and stands barefoot on the roof, trying to focus on the lights and the traffic and the glint against the water. She can see Queens from here. She can see the bridge that would take her home. She can imagine the darkness of it, the light bulbs that never got changed and the couch that smelled like mildew and the fridge that was full of rotted food and beer. She actually can't remember any of her Thanksgivings there. They just passed, unremarkable as any other day, except that she didn't have to go to school and the volume on the television was slightly louder for the moments every hour or so her father's drunken stupor lifted enough to pay attention to football.

She hears the scuff of gravel behind her, so light that she doesn't really think anything of it as she turns around.

It shouldn't be so shocking, and yet it is: seeing Spiderman up here, alone, this close. He freezes almost as if he has been caught, and she is similarly stricken, rooted and still barefoot to the spot.

He is staring at her. Somehow even through the opaque eyeholes of his mask she can tell that he is staring straight at her, staring intently and unflinchingly. She reminds herself to breathe and stares back at him, gripping her heels in her hand, feeling a strange bubble of fury and elation well in her chest.

He takes a step forward. Something about it is guarded and hesitant, and she wonders why, until she realizes that she is a few feet from the edge of the roof and that this scene must look entirely different through his eyes.

She sets her shoes down in a huff. "I'm not going to jump, if that's what you think," she snaps, irritated at his assumption.

His hands fly up in a defensive gesture. He is not, she notices, saying a word to her, even though Spiderman used to be infamous for talking under his breath and saying snarky and clever things that inevitably got quoted and twisted in various publications the next day. She can only think it is because her suspicions are true, and that Peter doesn't want to give himself away—but when she looks at this spandex-clad figure, this almost unearthly science experiment of a person, she can't find Peter anywhere.

It's unnerving, how he is looking at her without eyes. Still, she feels surprisingly unself-conscious, as if she is the one in control. She is plain and honest and bare, and he is still hiding behind a mask.

"Well?" she says. She is trying to sound tough. "Move along, tiger."

He cocks his head, either in irritation or amusement, and that's when she sees him. Peter. It is all in that gesture, so unsettlingly and unmistakably _Peter_. She takes a step back, barely stumbling. He lurches forward like he's ready to catch her, but stops when she rights herself, and they both hover there with a good ten feet of stifling distance between them.

A siren blares in the distance. She turns her head towards it. Spiderman does not.

She raises her eyebrows at him with a confidence that she does not possess. "Time's up," she says. She takes a step toward him, seeing the sudden tautness in his muscles, in preparation to spring away. "I'd say be careful, but that doesn't really seem like your style."

She can practically feel his eye roll in the slight pause before she hears the whirr of webbing spit from a device near his wrist. He is off the ground in a flash. She watches the red and blue streak against the glare of the city lights, and then he is gone. The sirens fade into the distance and the wind blows between her knees and she is alone again, but somehow less alone than she was two minutes before.

It's cold. She doesn't linger, doesn't stare off into the distance or wonder if he'll come back. If he does it will be pathetic that she waited for him, and besides, she got what she wanted, didn't she? She smiles and shakes her head a little bit, still in too much disbelief to appreciate the weirdness of it all, of her almost aggressive behavior toward him and his mysterious silence. She felt like someone else just now, or better yet, like the person she used to be—a more grown-up and confident version of the cocky girl she once was straight out of college.

It feels—the only word she can think of is _thrilling_, and she sets her hand down on her chest and feels her heart thumping with a beautiful and unexpected speed. She isn't angry anymore. He has done nothing, literally nothing except stand on a roof and tilt his head at her, but she can't find any room for anger when there is so much else overwhelming the feeling.

She grabs her shoes and sticks them back on, looking out at the city one last time before she heads inside. She wonders if he will come back tonight, and find that she isn't here. She wonders if he'll come back tomorrow, or the day after that, or the day after that, and if it really matters when all he does is stare at her through the lenses of a mask.

* * *

The next morning she pads out into the living room to grab an apple. Harry is standing at Lexie's coffee machine in a bathrobe, staring at her as if it is his kitchen and she has intruded on his solitude.

"Don't you have a fancy loft somewhere you could spend time at?" she asks, wiping the sleep out of her eyes.

He pours himself coffee in a mug he absolutely knows belongs to MJ. He looks at her critically, at the apple in her hand and her oversized shirt and sweatpants.

"You were prettier when you weren't so skinny," he says, his tone derisive.

The comment stings, but she doesn't react, even though the muscles in her hand are practically screaming to knock the coffee cup out of his smug, self-righteous hands.

Lexie chooses that moment to amble out of her bedroom, stretching widely so that her tank top skims way above her belly button. She tiptoes over to him, most of her exposed despite the chill in the apartment from their less-than-reliable heater, and she stops behind Harry and snakes her arms around his waist, arching her face upward to kiss his cheek.

"It's so early," she whines. "Come back to bed."

MJ stares down at her half-eaten apple, wishing he would just leave with her. She doesn't want to move because she doesn't want to attract any attention to herself, doesn't want to look like she is watching them or cares one bit what they do.

"Just a minute," says Harry, ostentatiously reaching a hand around and grabbing Lexie's ass.

It takes everything MJ has to suppress the eye roll threatening to escape her. She manages to cover it up with a strategically timed yawn.

"Hey, sleepyhead," Lexie says, grinning up at her with mischief in her eyes. "I heard all about Darien's little declaration last night. _He's_ the guy who hooked up with last week? I gotta say, girl, I did not see that coming."

Back in the days that she and Harry were serious about each other, they spent so much time together just co-existing, breathing in each other's airs and sharing unspoken thoughts, that the shifts in his emotion became like an extension of herself. Even now she can tell without looking at him that his posture has gone rigid, that his jaw is working and grinding his teeth, and that in a few moments he will go deathly still as he absorbs what Lexie is saying.

MJ keeps her voice neutral. "I didn't do anything with Darien. He's lying."

"Hey, I'm not judging. I mean, he's an asshole, but he's a hot asshole. And besides, how else are we going to meet boys? Besides the smokin' ones at bars," she quips, stroking a possessive hand across Harry's chest.

Harry doesn't even seem to notice her touch. MJ looks up and accidentally meets his stare, and it is chilling in its intensity and focus. She looks away before he does, feeling jilted.

She shrugs, suddenly aware of the awkwardness of her body, of the elbows and shoulders and knees and the way Harry is looking at all of her. "Darien was drunk off his rocker last night. Whatever he said—it's not true."

Lexie winks at her. "Sure thing, girl. I totally believe you."

"Lexie," says MJ, exasperated but finished defending herself.

She grabs Harry's arm and starts dragging him toward the bedroom. "Jane and Darien, sitting in a tree," she singsongs. "F—U—C—"

"That's enough," Harry snaps.

Lexie drops Harry's arm and the three of them stand there, Harry wedged between the two of them and straightening his back, trying and failing to recover. MJ feels her face grow hot with guilt and looks away, but not before she sees the hurt and confused expression on Lexie's face, as she flounders and tries to think of something to say.

"I'm—I'm sorry?" she finally comes up with.

"No, no," says Harry. The words are apologetic but his tone is not. "No, I'm sorry. I guess I didn't sleep much last night."

Lexie starts to say something back to him, her voice low and soothing, but MJ heads back to her room and shuts the door before she has to hear any of it. She yanks off her pajamas and jams her sneakers on. She's out of running clothes so she grabs some from the dirty laundry pile, figuring she'll be running too fast for anyone to get a whiff of her anyway.

She has to get out of this apartment, and she doesn't particularly care what state she is in when she does it.

The living room is mercifully empty when she leaves, and she is so set on moving that she can't wait for elevator but instead paces all the way down the stairs until she hits the street. She's trying to decide which direction she'll head in, left or right—trying to think of the possible routes she has taken or what new ones she can make by combining or lengthening the preexisting ones—and in her beat of hesitation she sees Peter Parker, slouching with his hands in his pockets, staring at her from across the street.

She waves. It feels like a stupidly insignificant gesture after the intensity of the rooftop meeting near hours before, but it happens reflexively. He doesn't wave back, and she goes about shoving her headphones in her ears to ignore the hurt creeping inside of her.

By the time she looks back up Peter's chest is completely obstructing her vision. Her neck snaps up and she stares at him in surprise.

"You—hey," she stammers, her throat suddenly tight. It seems strange to her that the girl who was so smooth talking and self-assured only hours before is now standing here struggling to find words like a fish out of water. She tries to grasp for some shred of her confidence but she must have left it forty floors up.

"Hi," he says. His fists are burrowed into his pockets still, and his cheeks are bright red, as if he has been in the cold for a long time.

There is a pause between them, because she thinks he must have something to say if he has run across the street to talk to her, but he just stares, shivering on the sidewalk. She adjusts her headband so it covers her ears a little better and chews on her lip. Is he angry with her? Does he know that Harry's been hanging around the apartment for all this time? No, she decides, because he looks almost happy, with this earnest expression on his face. It almost seems like he was waiting to run into her here. She strikes the idea as soon as she thinks it, but he was basically standing still across the street when she spotted him, so she can't help but wonder.

Finally the silence has gone on for just a second too long, and she clears her throat and holds up her music player, saying, "Well … I'm going to go on a run."

"Yeah, yeah, I see," he says, taking a step back from her as if he is only realizing that he is several inches from her and her neck can barely compensate to look up at him. "Um—hey. I was wondering—Aunt May was wondering, I mean—well, do you have any plans for Thanksgiving tonight?"

She is surprised by the question, so surprised that she can't think on her feet, and answers honestly: "No, not really."

"You want to … ?" He makes some vague gesture with his hands, as if he is pointing towards Queens.

She recognizes this little quirk of his and feels a little more at ease. "Are you inviting me to Thanksgiving dinner?" she says, trying not to smirk.

"Yeah. If you want to. It's just me and Aunt May. I'm going over there to start helping her with the cooking right now, actually."

"Oh," she says. "Well—I'll help, too."

"You don't have to," he says.

She tries to decide whether he is just saying that to be polite, or if he is actually reluctant to have her follow him. She searches his face for a moment, and when he sees her hesitation he adds, "I've got time. If you want to go change. You already run a lot anyway, give yourself a break."

She is about to look up at him in bewilderment, because there is no way that he could possibly know that she runs a lot without her mentioning it to him, but his eyes flit away because he has realized this so she keeps her expression neutral and tries not to react as she digests this information. His chin juts out like he is upset with himself and she laughs, just a bare little laugh under her breath, and it seems to ease the awkwardness of it just enough that he looks back up at her again.

"Alright. Yeah. I'll be right back, if you don't mind," she says.

"Great," says Peter, nodding vigorously, still not quite recovered.

He starts to follow her into the building and she is stricken with the thought of Harry, who is probably still lounging around her apartment. She can't even imagine how angry Peter would be if he found out that she hadn't said a word about it. She feels the muscles in her legs constrict with panic as they carry her toward the door to the lobby—what can she say to get out of this, without insulting him? Because the truth is, she kind of wants Peter to see her apartment. She wants him to see her room, where she lives and eats and breathes, because she wants him to be a part of her little world again—the way he was when they all lived together, when she took it all for granted.

And she doesn't want to push him away by making him feel unwelcome. The trouble is, she already feels unwelcome herself.

She swivels on her heel, holding her hands up to stop him. She has misgauged how close he is, though, and ends up pressing her hands right against his chest.

"You—um—" She gapes at her own hands, pressed against the zipper of his coat, and then quickly drops them. "My apartment's a mess," she says.

"That's okay," he says in that oblivious way of his, continuing to follow her.

"No—no, it's not," she says. She puts a hand to her face, trying to think. "What I meant to say is—uh—sometimes my roommates hang around naked? And I just—I didn't want you to …"

"Oh," says Peter. He blinks and takes a step back, his face much brighter than his initial flush from the cold. "Oh, um—okay, yeah, I'll just, uh, wait down here, then."

She is miserable enough to sink into the pavement. "Yeah. Be right back," she says weakly.

The door to Lexie's room is shut. MJ quietly shuts the door behind her and peels off the tight running clothes in favor of jeans, a knit sweater, and a worn out pair of boots. She tugs her hair out of her ponytail and runs her fingers through it, giving it a few loose shakes in the mirror. She wonders if there's enough time to put any make-up on, even just a touch concealer and mascara, but it seems too vain to waste time up here on that while Peter is waiting for her on the street below.

She grabs her purse and is about to leave, and at the last second remembers that she has a bunch of frozen vegetables in the freezer. She figures it's better than showing up with nothing, so she finds a grocery bag and piles them in, trying to do it quietly so the plastic doesn't crinkle. But nobody emerges from the bedrooms and she makes it back out the door without any more unwelcome Harry interactions.

When she comes back out Peter is leaning against a mail bin and smiling at her. She must seem a little flustered because as she approaches him he says, "Hey, there's no rush," and takes the grocery bag out of her hand before she even realizes he is reaching for it.

"Oh," she says. "You don't have to—"

"I'm not making you lug whatever this is all the way to Brooklyn. People will think I'm some sort of unchivalrous jerk."

MJ wants to protest more, but it's kind of sweet, that maybe Peter thinks strangers might mistake them for a couple. "I'm pretty sure unchivalrous isn't a word," she says, as the two of them make their way toward the subway.

Peter shrugs. "I did almost fail us in English sophomore year."

She laughs out loud. "I actually forgot about that." It's strange to think of a time when her grades were the center of her little universe, when things like that felt like they were going to matter forever.

"Really?" He cracks a half-smile as they descend to the platform. "And here I go, finally off the hook and bringing it up again. Oh, here," he says, grabbing her hand unexpectedly, and pulling her out of the way of a guy texting on his phone about to barrel into her.

It isn't the first time Peter has ever held her hand, but it is certainly the first time in a long while. She feels the warmth of it radiating in her palms, pulsing in her fingers. She looks up at him. The man passes by but neither of them lets go for a second, until a loud group of teenagers starts coming up from behind them, forcing them to break apart so they can let them through.

"Thanks," she says.

Peter looks straight ahead, his empty hand hanging a little awkwardly at his side. "Anytime," he says, but not over-confidently, but in his dependable and slightly awkward way.

It's an ugly place to be, standing wedged between strangers and homeless people and watching the rats scurry across the tracks as they wait for the train. But there is something different about today, something different about Peter, or about the both of them: for once it feels easy, and for once she doesn't feel guilty or uncomfortable or small. They board the train and it's so crowded that there's barely any room on the support beam, so she grabs his arm to steady herself. He is solid as a rock as the train lurches, and when he looks up with this reassuring smile on his face, she feels this small glimmer of faith that maybe this isn't a lost cause. Maybe it can really be simple, can really be saved, can really just be a shy smile on the subway that turns into something good.

* * *

I know, I know, I know. It's been a bajillion years. In my defense, I've spent the last few days getting turfed between Nashville, New York and Washington, D.C., for all sorts of different reasons, none of them glamorous or at all contributing to my pretend career as a songwriter. Between all the traveling and the seeing family and friends and catching up on everything under the sun I've been sneaking in fanfiction writing, mostly while I wolf down breakfast or in the delirious pre-dawn hours between getting home from gigs and getting up at five am for work.

Also I saw Taylor Swift in concert, and I don't care if I lose all credibility by saying it was basically a religious experience and I cried. (And danced and laughed and SANG, A LOT). I got all my sisters involved and forced them to paint matching RED tour t-shirts with me and sharpie our favorite Tay Swift lyrics all over them. They are very sweet for humoring me. (Especially since they're younger than I am, and that's totally not their job.)

Taylor Swift is literally the only reason I'm excited to turn twenty-two soon. Which is horrifying in some ways, because I was writing the first fanfic in this series when I was still twenty, which means I have spent a pretty sizable chunk of my life in the Spidey-verse. Also twenty-two is like that age when the grown-ups in your life who watched you attend college expect you to have a job that doesn't involve standing behind a register all day, aaaaaand I'm a little bit screwed in that department. At least now there's a peppy song to put a band-aid on my misguided, fading youth.


	18. Chapter 18

**Perpendicular**

* * *

The instant MJ hits the front walk to Peter's house a wave of enticing smells greets them from the open window. MJ tries to think of the last time she had a homecooked meal, or anything even vaguely warm, and finds that she can't remember. The combination of her busy schedule and complete indifference for cooking means she has been living off of energy bars and frozen fruit, and only now that the aroma of cooking turkey and buttery mashed potatoes and corn is wafting through the air, she feels her stomach gripping with anticipation.

"Mary Jane," May exclaims when she sees her. She is still petite and tired-looking, but seems healthier than the last time MJ saw her. She doesn't hesitate to embrace MJ, as if no time has passed at all and nothing terrible has happened in the time since they last spoke. As she draws away she says, "I was hoping you'd be able to make it. I told Peter to ask you weeks ago."

"You did?" MJ asks, wondering whether she should look at Peter for confirmation.

"I—I'm sorry. I didn't forget. I just got busy," says Peter to the oven, where he is suddenly engrossed in whatever is happening with the turkey.

MJ doesn't feel hurt, necessarily, but can't help her confusion. He has had her number for weeks, and she literally lives ten blocks away. She decides not to linger on it, though. She's happy to be here, happy to see May again and actually feel like a part of a group for Thanksgiving, and she isn't going to let her feelings for Peter get in the way of that.

May opens her mouth, like she is trying to think of something conciliatory to say, but MJ pipes up before she can by motioning to the grocery bag Peter set down.

"I brought some vegetables. It isn't much, I just thought in case you needed any—"

"Oh, lovely," says May. "There are all sorts of dishes I can throw these into. Peter, why don't you and Mary Jane take these over while I work on the stuffing." She motions to the half-peeled pile of potatoes beside her.

She and Peter set quietly to work without saying much to each other. May stares at them from the stove with this knowing kind of look and winks at MJ, and suddenly MJ feels inexplicably shy about talking to Peter in front of her, wondering if the wink was just meant to be a friendly hello kind of gesture or if it means that she hasn't hidden her feelings for Peter nearly as well as she had hoped. She is glad to have something to do with her hands, something to stare at and focus on, because otherwise she wouldn't have any idea what to do with herself.

May keeps the conversation rolling, asking MJ about her role in the show and her film auditions and whether or not she is training for a race—"Peter says you've been running an awful lot," she says, at which point Peter brings the potato he is peeling impossibly close to his face for examination—and whether or not MJ plans to stay in New York for good.

"I don't know," says MJ, with a careful glance at Peter. He isn't looking at her anyway. She turns back to May and adds, "I guess it depends on how long the show runs for."

"I need to get out of this old house and see it. Peter has promised to be my date one of these nights."

Peter nods. "Mary Jane's really great in it," he says, which is one of the few things he has contributed to the conversation in the past half hour.

She reaches for another potato to peel, and is a little flustered when she realizes that they're all gone. "I'm glad you liked it," she says, wiping her hands on her jeans just to have something to do.

When she looks up May is smiling at her. MJ smiles back tentatively and the woman holds her gaze for a beat too long, like she is examining MJ in a way that she hasn't before. MJ is glad that she opted to dress low-key for this, because she likes this feeling of coziness, and what she thinks is a look of approval on May's face. There are very few people in her world that she admires and wants to impress, and May has always been one of them.

"So tell me, do you ever hear from Harry Osborn anymore?" May asks conversationally.

May has her back turned to them, so she doesn't see Peter's shoulders go rigid and MJ's lips tighten into a thin line. It is evident from her pleasant tone that whatever warnings Peter gave MJ about Harry, he has not extended to his aunt.

"He's around," MJ says noncommittally. She doesn't want to lie.

"The two of you aren't dating, then?" says May. She has turned to face them, and by now Peter has relaxed a bit and she doesn't notice his reaction at all. "If you don't mind my asking."

"No, no, not at all," says MJ politely. "We haven't been dating for a while." She pointedly keeps her eyes straight ahead and nowhere near Peter when she says this, because she doesn't want him to think that she has dumped Harry solely because of his warnings—it was, after all, a decision she came to long before that on her own.

May nods, turning back around to dip a fork to mix the pasta on the stove. "I never thought he was all that right for you anyway," she says.

MJ is surprised that May is so outspoken about this, particularly because she can't ever recall a time when Harry and May actually met.

"Oh," is all MJ can really offer in return, because she isn't sure if this is a compliment or not. Because on a surface level, Harry was still kind, and attractive, and well-off, and unless May has been a fly on the wall for all of the shit he has put her through in the last few months, she has no other impression of Harry to draw from.

There is an uneasy silence after that, and MJ busies herself with random tasks around the kitchen, washing abandoned dishes and organizing the food on the table. It is in this silence that the unacknowledged guest makes her presence known: they have reached a point in the conversation where it is too difficult to hedge around Gwen's death. MJ will never be the one to bring it up, not if she can help it, and Peter is closed off enough as it is. She looks over at May, wondering if—or maybe when—she will bring it up, because it seems like it is only a matter of time. They can't all stand here and enjoy each other's company for the first time in years and pretend that they haven't been profoundly changed by this tragedy.

But nobody ever says anything, and because of that it feels like somebody has screamed it, like it is projecting off the walls. Or maybe MJ is only imagining it. Maybe she is paranoid, thrust unexpectedly back into the Parker home, into a life and a family and a chair at a table that Gwen used to sit in, with a dish she used to fill.

May says grace before they eat. It is simple and sweet, and MJ knows she is supposed to bow her head, but instead she is staring at the bridge of Peter's nose, at the closed lids of his eyes and his elbows on the table.

She finishes and MJ just barely remembers to add her "Amen." May is beaming at the two of them when she raises her head back up, and in that moment everything feels like a snapshot of somebody else's life: the warm yellows and reds of the dining room, the smell of bread from the oven, the sound of the light rain pattering against the windows. The two people on either side of her and the feeling of belonging, the reserved and quiet happiness of sitting in a familiar place.

It becomes easier to talk, somehow, with food in front of them. Peter carves the turkey, and after another round of serial questions from May, he loosens up a bit and actually engages them both in conversation. He has been picking up more freelance photography gigs now that Spiderman pictures aren't as much in demand, and mentions for the first time that he is applying for a position at Stark Industries. MJ can't help but smirk a little, thinking that maybe that is the only thing on the planet that might piss Harry off more than MJ breaking up with him.

They're finished with dinner fairly early in the evening, so after they clear the dishes May convinces them to watch a Hallmark channel movie. The couch is small so they sit shoulder to shoulder, with Peter in the middle. MJ is all too aware of the heat of his arm against hers, and how close his face is whenever he turns his head to talk to her. She isn't paying much attention to the movie, something with a bunch of semi-recognizable B-list actresses discovering the meaning of Christmas, but the movie ends with three quarters of demolished pumpkin pie and an empty bottle of wine on the coffee table in front of them.

"I never thought I'd say this," says Peter gravely. "But I am so full I could explode."

MJ moans in agreement. May smiles as if this is a great personal success.

Peter puts a hand on her shoulder. She is proud of herself for not jumping in surprise. "You're going to have to roll me to the subway."

"Heavens no," says May. "Not in the middle of the night. You two will stay right here."

"Aunt May, it's nine o'clock," Peter says, protesting good-naturedly. "We gotta get back to the city."

"I forbid it."

"I'm sure Mary Jane has some place to be, or plans, or something," says Peter, looking to her for help, but MJ only shrugs in response. The truth is she doesn't want to leave, but she can see an unease in Peter's expression. She doesn't have to wonder for too long why he would be so eager to get back.

May's voice is soothing but firm. "You can spend one night away from the city, Peter. I've barely seen you in months. And the both of you look like you could use a good night's rest."

MJ's eyes flick over to Peter's, and it is clear to her where both of their minds have gone: to an ungodly hour on top of a rooftop in the bitter cold, where she spent those brief few minutes with Spiderman last night. She analyzes his expression in this moment, because she has privileged knowledge that he does not—it suddenly strikes her as strange, even darkly funny, that she knows so much more than she is letting on. She hasn't really thought of it as _lying_ until this moment, when Peter gnaws thoughtfully on his lower lip and reflects on last night, thinking that MJ doesn't have a clue it was him all along. But it is lying, isn't it?

She doesn't feel one bit guilty for it. Hasn't he lied to her for years? Isn't he lying to her right now? He never told her the truth—she found out on her own, or at least she is relatively certain she did, because there is almost no doubt in her mind about Spiderman's identity now.

Peter slumps a little bit in submission. "You're right. One night," he says with a nod.

MJ is not-so-secretly pleased. There is something so warm and inviting about this space that she never wants to leave it. May fishes out a pair of Peter's old pajamas, some loose-fitting pants and button up shirt with matching planets and stars on them, and tells her to take Peter's room. She protests and says she'll be fine on the couch, but Peter insists that he can sleep anywhere, and she knows from experience that he's right.

A few seconds after she finishes changing there's a light knock on the door.

"Come in."

She assumes it's May, and is about to flick on the lamp. She is startled to see Peter, his face barely visible in the dim light, and she stops mid-gesture and stares at him in the darkness.

His eyes trail her entire body for a long and deliberate few seconds. She is frozen, watching him and wondering if she is imagining his attention, and it's only when she self-consciously crosses her arms over her braless chest that Peter looks away from her and takes a step into his room.

"Sorry," he mumbles. "My old toothbrush is in the bathroom."

"Oh, no, go on right ahead," she says, stepping out of his way.

She stands there uncertainly, watching him. She was planning on settling in under the covers, but now that he is in here it seems bizarrely antisocial to climb into his bed and shut her eyes with him standing a few feet away. She shuffles and stares at random objects in the room, at the photos on his desk and the tools spilling out of the closet and the three skateboards in various states of disrepair lined up against the wall. She is desperate to find some conversation piece, something to comment on and engage him, but he beats her to the punch.

"I'm pretty sure I haven't worn those since I was twelve."

His mouth is full of toothpaste and she just barely understands him. "Oh yeah?" she says, grazing her fingertips on the seams of the sleeves. "They're comfortable."

"They're too big on you." His eyes are lingering on her again. She wants to step out of the faint light from the bathroom, to shrink away from his gaze, but she is trapped by it. It is something she both dreads and craves.

"Yeah, well. That's why they're pajamas," she says awkwardly.

He bends over and spits into the sink. "I'm sorry Aunt May roped you into staying the night."

"No, no," she is quick to say. "I mean, it's nice. I like this—I like it here." He is flossing now, which she finds kind of endearing, because she hasn't really known anyone who flosses, at least not anyone who does it with even half the intensity and focus. "Thanks for inviting me."

He nods. "You need another blanket? The heater here is worthless."

"I should be fine," she says.

He walks out of the bathroom, his figure so tall that his shadow casts over her and blocks the light. The angles of his face are striking in the darkness, and she has this muddled notion that this doesn't count, standing here in the barely light with him, that if she wanted to act now that she could without consequence. She feels a familiar buzz in her fingertips, a compelling and demanding sensation in her gut. They're alone and confined and the rain is beating against the window. She feels for a moment like they are the only two people left in the world.

"Well, there's a blanket in the closet right outside if you change your mind," he says. He flicks off the bathroom light and in the brief moment before he opens the bedroom door it is pitch black, and she can't see a thing. When a sliver of light bursts in from the hallway he says, "Good night, Mary Jane," and then shuts the door behind him, leaving her in the dark once more.

* * *

A few hours later MJ wakes up shivering uncontrollably. Peter was right about the heater. Her toes are practically numb, and no matter how tightly she wraps the sheet around herself she feels like she is living in an icebox. Reluctantly she pulls the sheets off of herself, cringing as her bare feet touch the freezing hardwood floor, and pads quietly out of the room in search of a blanket.

She looks to her right, and then to her left, but she doesn't see a closet. There is May's room across the hall, empty with the door open. There's a spare bathroom and a room where the dryer and laundry machine are set up. But other than that she can't find the closet Peter was referring to, and decides to tiptoe down the stairs and see if she can't at least grab the throw blanket from the couch, because something is better than nothing.

She is about halfway down the stairs when she hears the clinking of a spoon against a cup. She freezes. May's room is empty, so it's only logical that she is still awake downstairs, but in her sleepy delirium MJ hadn't quite made that connection yet. Words are being exchanged, obviously with Peter, and she is about to walk downstairs and announce her presence when she hears May say her name.

"What about her?" Peter is asking.

They are in the kitchen, the part that opens up to the foyer. She is pretty sure that Peter is leaning against the wall, because his voice is closer, and that May is somewhere near the fridge.

"I'm just glad the two of you have reconnected. She's a lovely girl."

Peter clears his throat. "We don't actually see that much of each other."

"I don't see why not."

Peter makes some uncommitted, strained noise that never quite develops into words. MJ's muscles are rigid with the effort not to make a sound and alert them to her presence, but she isn't so sure that she wants to hear this. She wants to climb back up the stairs before it gets any worse, but she is also desperately afraid of getting caught if a stair creaks under her feet on the way back up.

Peter must look pained in some way because May says in a gentle voice, "I know, Peter. I know," and for a long time neither of them says anything. She wonders if Peter is crying, or just upset, but she knows whatever is happening down there, it has to do with Gwen, and MJ's connection to her. It is only a brutal confirmation of what she already suspects: Peter can't stand the sight of her because it reminds him too much of what he has lost.

"I know it isn't any of my business. But it's been almost two years, Peter."

There isn't a response. MJ is holding her breath and feeling her face grow hot with curiosity and shame.

"You deserve to be happy. Gwen wouldn't want this."

"I am happy," says Peter. "We had a great Thanksgiving, can't we just—"

"I barely ever see you, you never come home anymore and I know you don't have any friends in Manhattan. You're running yourself ragged and you seem determined to be alone. It's no way to live your life, Peter."

He exhales wearily. "I'm sorry I haven't visited much. I am."

"It's not about that," says May. "I just worry about you."

"You shouldn't."

"But I do," she says, the pitch of her voice oscillating in distress. "I do, Peter. And I'm glad for Mary Jane. I think this is good for you, I think it's important that you leave that apartment and _talk_ to someone. And I know the two of you didn't always get along, but it's clear that the two of you care for each other."

"We get along just fine," says Peter, an edge of irritation in his voice. "I just—I'm busy. We're both busy."

"That's a load of nonsense."

"What does it matter?" says Peter, sounding desperate to get out of this conversation, but also reluctant to upset his aunt.

"You're pushing her away, the same way you've pushed me away."

"Aunt May—I'm—if you think that I'm pushing you away, I really am sorry—"

"I know you don't mean to. And I love you, Peter. So you can push and push me away, but I will always be here." She is quiet for a moment, and the pause is so heavy that MJ can feel its weight and intensity as if she is staring into May's eyes herself. "But Mary Jane won't be."

"I don't understand," says Peter. Without even seeing him she can tell her is wringing his fingers together. "Why are you so preoccupied with her?"

MJ's muscles tense even further, waiting for her answer.

"Oh, Peter." There is a weary, bittersweet edge in her voice. "I've seen the way she looks at you—"

"She doesn't look at me like anything," Peter says, the words clipped and unyielding. "She doesn't think of me like that."

"This is why I worry. You seem so determined to be alone, that you can't see what's right in front of you."

There is a long pause after this, so long that MJ thinks that they have left the room without her properly hearing, and that any moment one of them is going to mount the stairs and discover her. She is about to turn back and tiptoe back up the stairs when Peter finally speaks.

"I'm tired, Aunt May. I'm going to turn in for the night."

For the first time she notices their shadows on the floor of the foyer. She watches the shorter shadow lean forward, and then hears the sound of May kissing Peter on the forehead. "Good night, Peter," she says, her hands on his shoulders.

This is MJ's cue to leave. She crawls back up to the freezing cold room pulls the covers up back over herself, shutting her eyes and shivering in the dark, wondering if there will ever be a part of Peter that could care for her if he doesn't even when it's written all over her face.

* * *

Breakfast is quiet the next morning. There are rings under Peter's eyes, and he barely touches his coffee, his thoughts clearly elsewhere. She worries that it's because of what May said last night, and that maybe he will double his efforts to avoid her now, and it's only when they are leaving and she sees today's paper on the stack of untouched papers outside her father's house that she reads about the mysterious explosion at OsCorp's labs that happened overnight.

She picks up the paper and starts walking away with it. Peter watches her reading the article.

"Did you just steal a newspaper?" he asks.

MJ doesn't answer, poring over the details. A contained, unaccounted for explosion in a basement lab. No deaths, just structural damage to the building, and no explanation or people involved. It's _The Bugle_, so of course they are pinning the blame on Spiderman, who, just as MJ assumed, was apparently on the scene a few minutes after the explosion took place.

"Mary Jane. You can't just take someone's paper."

"That's my house," she snaps. "We were neighbors, remember?"

"Oh." To his credit, Peter does sound adequately embarrassed. "Sorry. Not quite awake yet."

It's the most he has spoken to her all morning. They trudge to the subway in the cold, MJ wishing she had thought to grab a coat before she rushed out of the apartment yesterday morning. Peter isn't wearing one either, but he doesn't seem at all affected by the chill. His thoughts are clearly elsewhere.

"You look tired," she says.

He evidently hasn't heard her, staring out the window of the subway car into the black nothingness of the tunnel whirring by.

They ascend back into the cold air and noise of the city, and wordlessly start walking in the direction of their apartments. Her building is closest, and as they walk side by side for a few blocks she is almost eager to shake him off, because it is so uncomfortable. She turns the corner onto their street and suddenly Peter stops, and grabs her arm, and says, "Wait."

"What?"

"Just—let's—get coffee?"

He is talking to her but staring down the street. She follows his gaze without really processing his words, because his slack face has now come to life, twisting and strained. Peter has always been a terrible liar, and she knows for a fact he has never been interested in taking her out for coffee.

Peter's hand is still wrapped around her arm, gently leading her back around the corner, but not before she sees what he has been staring at: Harry Osborn, walking toward her building—no, walking straight past it, and waving, because he has seen them.

"Damn it," Peter mutters, dropping MJ's arm. "Come on. Let's go."

"It's just Harry," MJ says uneasily. Still, she follows Peter for the first few steps, watching as his eyes dart around the street. He is looking for some place that they can duck in to, but it's too early for any of the restaurants to be open and this may be the only block in Manhattan that she doesn't immediately see some kind of chain coffee shop.

"Hey, Pete! Long time no see!"

MJ stops abruptly. Peter keeps walking a few steps, his shoulders high and rigid, but when he realizes MJ is no longer beside him, he stops too.

Harry's grin is broad, his posture easy, but there is something hard and unnatural in his eyes. He half-jogs up to them and the closer he gets, the more unnerving it seems, like his stare isn't even human. She tears her eyes away from him. For all the time he has spent in the apartment, she probably hasn't looked at him directly in months. Of course he would look a little unsettling, a little strange. He hates her now.

"Hey, Mary Jane," he says, ostentatiously patting her on the back. She and Peter move simultaneously, MJ away from Harry and Peter closer to MJ. Harry sees the dynamic shift and his grin widens until it is almost manic on his face, stretching too wide for his lips to contain.

"You must be real busy with your camera, Pete. I hardly ever hear from you anymore."

Peter puts a possessive hand on MJ's shoulder. MJ can't enjoy it because she isn't looking at him, isn't looking at either of them. She is bracing herself for what Harry says next, because she knows this posture of his, knows how he enjoys making her squirm. Hasn't he done it enough times over dinner or while her roommates are perched watching a movie with him in the living room? Dropped some innocuous little comment with the intention of trying to upend the neat little world she has created for herself.

"We've got somewhere to be," Peter says, his voice halted and neutral.

"Oh, I get it. It's fine. Mary Jane will catch me up when she gets home."

And there it is. MJ crosses her arms over her chest, wishing she could shrink into herself as Peter's head snaps up to face Harry and Harry stares at them both, reveling in the chasm he has created.

"What is he talking about?"

Peter is addressing her, not Harry. Her stomach sinks with dread and guilt and—even though she hates to acknowledge it—fear. A part of her almost has wanted Peter to find out, because she is powerless to do anything about it herself. But what can Peter do that she can't?

"Mary Jane didn't tell you," Harry says, almost sympathetically. "We practically live together now."

She jumps in before he can say anything more: "Because he's dating my _roommate_."

Peter's stare goes from incredulous to confused to livid in about the time it takes for MJ to spit out her explanation. At first she thinks the anger is directed at her, and wonders if he'll yell at her right here in front of Harry, but he turns back to their old friend as if she isn't even there.

She thought she had seen Peter furious before—after she would spend an afternoon in college annoying him, or when a taxi driver almost hit him at an intersection, or even after the Goblin attack when she didn't answer her phone—but the truth is, she has seen him mad. She has seen him angry. But this, this is a whole new level of rage, so intense that his face is white and bloodless as he stares at Harry's smug face.

"You," he says. His teeth are clenched. His voice is so low that she struggles to hear him, and gets the impression that he doesn't want her to. "You leave her out of this."

MJ finds herself watching for Harry's reaction, thinking it might clarify what Peter's words have failed to. Leave her out of _what?_ She has assumed whatever this cryptic problem of Harry's is has to do with drugs, or some mental imbalance after his father's death, but she didn't think it involved Peter.

Unless Harry knows, too. The thought wraps around her brain like a tightly-coiled snake. She scrutinizes him, all smirking and bravado in his nicely-pressed suit, and decides that no, he couldn't know. This new version of Harry knows no loyalties. If he knew, then he would have already found some way to make Peter pay.

Then what reason could they possibly have to hate each other so much?

Harry looks almost triumphant, raising his chin up to Peter. He has always liked to be the one in control. It is something MJ used to admire about him. Now it fills her with an uncomfortable anxiety, as if he is capable of much more than she realized.

"Like I told Mary Jane. This has nothing to do with her. Not with either of you. I'm dating Lizzie—"

"Lexie," MJ corrects him. "Jesus, you're dating Lexie."

He pauses, shutting his eyes in transparent irritation. "In any case, that's my business, not yours."

Peter takes a step forward and for a split second MJ is sure he is going to hit Harry.

"Come on, Mary Jane," he says instead, putting a hand on her arm to lead her away.

She should shake him off. She doesn't need to be hand-held, and she gets the impression that Peter wouldn't trust her to get out of Harry's sight without him keeping track of her. But she doesn't want to piss him off any further. He did just find out she's been lying to him for months, after all.

"Do you have the keys to your apartment?"

When he finally talks to her a block or so later, she is expecting him to say a lot of things, but definitely not that.

"Yeah," she says, pulling them out of her pocket to show him. "Why?"

He takes it from her. "You're not going back there."

She laughs, one biting and insecure little laugh, reaching for the key. "Give that back, I have to go home."

"No. I mean it." His voice is grave and resolute as he buries the key into his pocket.

"Peter," she says, too bewildered to feel offended. "All my stuff is there. You can't just—"

"I'll get your stuff."

She waits for him, calling his bluff, but his expression doesn't change. "And where the hell am I supposed to go?" she challenges him. "Don't you think I would have gone by now if there was someplace else?"

"You'll stay with me," says Peter, his gaze still up the street at Harry's retreating back, announcing this as if this is the most obvious thing in the world.

MJ balks at him. "What, just move in with you?" she says.

Peter shrugs. "Until you find another place. It's not like we haven't lived together before."

"Yeah, but back then—"

She stops herself. They both know what she means by it. They both stand there shiftily, MJ not quite believing what is happening, Peter just as frustrating and determined as ever.

"Look, Peter. Harry's being a dick. I don't like it either, but I don't want you to think you have to swoop in here and save me, or something. He's a nuisance. Not a threat. And this … seems a little extreme," she says, glancing at his pocket, where he is holding her key.

If anything, Peter looks even more resolute than he did five seconds before. "I'll call you later."

"Hey," she says, because he's walking away from her, too quickly for her to catch up without breaking into a run. "Well, where the hell am I supposed to go right now?"

He doesn't answer, doesn't so much as turn around. Well, she isn't going to chase after him, if that's what he thinks. What can he really do, anyway? Lug all her stuff ten blocks and shove it into his place? He doesn't even know which apartment she lives in, let alone the floor, and if he does—well, he's going to have an awkward time explaining himself, and she's going to feel, if possible, even _more_ confused by him than she already does.

"For Christ's sake," she mutters in his direction, before he rounds the corner and disappears. A woman with her child stops casts her a wary look and MJ responds by throwing her hands up helplessly and walking in the opposite direction.

She doesn't want to deal with this. Whatever the hell is going on between Harry and Peter has nothing to do with her. She figures that Peter will realize how irrational he is being once he calms down a bit, or at least after he circles all twenty floors of her building and sees how hopeless his chances of finding her apartment are. But in the meantime she has no key and she's almost ninety percent certain that neither of her roommates are home, since she woke up to several drunken 3am texts from them the night before, with some variation of spelling that she assumed meant "hotel."

At least she has her wallet with her. She walks until she finds a coffee shop somewhere, orders herself a drink and sits perched at the window, reading the same article about the OsCorp explosion in the paper and imagining Peter sneaking out of Queens and swinging to Manhattan somewhere in the dark of the night.

* * *

Sorry, I've been totally slammed, guys. I promise I will never abandon this story, my life has just been a circus, and also I was having a lot of indecision about what things to put in this chapter and which ones to save for the next one, which is clearly not, like, a problem that is going to affect the entire universe, but nevertheless had me stumped for days. If you haven't guessed by now, I am incredibly and unfortunately blonde.

I did get the chance to go to New York for a day. While I could have been extensively researching for this fanfiction, though, I chose to spend the two free hours I had by myself running a hundred blocks in total to dash between every major Manhattan cupcake shop like a madwoman. Even my native New Yorker friend was impressed by my success seeing as I have no navigational skills or common sense, but the cupcakes just call to me, like a Spidey sense, only eight thousand times more prolific and important, because sugar is obviously a higher priority than imminent villains flying around an unsuspecting city.


	19. Chapter 19

**Perpendicular**

* * *

At a half hour until curtain, Darien is nowhere to be found.

"Okay. Okay. Okay, I've got this. Okay."

Brad, the baby-faced twenty-two year old barely graduated from NYU, talks to himself as he paces outside MJ's dressing room, barging in every thirty seconds or so to ask her to run lines from different scenes with him. He's the understudy for Darien, and it's the first time he's ever had to go on. She finishes her make-up and rattles off her lines mechanically, trying not to get irritated for his benefit, but he is nervous and jumpy and with everything else she has on her mind, it seems to grate on her nerves ten times more than it usually would.

"Okay, okay, okay."

"Okay?" she finally interrupts him, once he has said the word so many times that it doesn't even sound like a word anymore, just a nonsense syllable he is repeating over and over.

He bares his teeth in an expression that MJ supposes he meant to be a smile.

"Oh, come on," she says, patting him on the back reassuringly. She wonders when twenty-two year olds starting looking like babies to her. "You'll be fine. This show has run for at least a year, I'm sure you can do the whole thing in your sleep."

"What if I drop a line?" he says, his eyes bugging out, his voice low so none of the stage crew hears him.

_I'll kill you_, she thinks. Instead she offers him a smile and says. "You won't. And if you do, I'll cover for you. Or someone will." Fortunately the other actors who were on tonight were all seasoned and prepared for

"I just wonder where Darien is," Brad muses, fidgeting and staring at the door, as if he might come in any minute.

MJ shrugs. She doesn't miss him. Sure, Darien knows all his lines and he's a decent actor, but at least she knows that this kid isn't going to bite her tongue mid-stage kiss or slide between the costumers to pinch her ass during one of her quick changes.

Brad is pacing again, and she has to bite her tongue to keep from snapping at him, but seriously, there's an entire backstage worth of floor, why does it have to be right outside her dressing room? She should feel more sympathetic, she knows. But she remembers being his age, working off tips and pretending to be interested in Teach For America just so she could get free pizza at the interest meetings, and she can't quite muster any pity for him. She would have killed to be on Broadway right out of school. She would have done _anything_, and damn it all if she wouldn't have known every single character's lines in the show on the off-chance that one of them keeled over mid-performance.

Brad only ends up stuttering once, and screwing up a dance move during their duet, but MJ doubts if anybody besides the cast and crew notice. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he says miserably, and MJ just dismisses him, telling him not to be, and then leaves as quickly as she can, because she doesn't want to have to play mother hen any longer than she has to.

She starts walking toward the apartment, and the day has been so long and the performance so stressful that she only just then remembers that Peter has her key, and an empty threat to move all her stuff out.

She glances behind her and in front of her, to see if Lexie or Lizzie has started the trek back to the apartment yet. She figures she'll just follow one of them home and once she gets in the apartment she'll call the landlord and see if there's a spare key, or go to the locksmith and see if she can get another one made.

She doesn't see either of the girls on the street, but she is hopeful that at least one of them is home, and if they aren't she has both of their numbers plugged into her phone. When she arrives she reaches for the doorknob, and is surprised that it yields to her wrist and opens on the first turn. She hoists her bag over her shoulder and lets herself inside, wondering who beat her here.

"Lizzie?" she calls. No answer. "Lex?"

_Slam!_

MJ retreats back a few steps, her heart leaping into her throat, her eyes glued to her closed bedroom door. There's a voice yelling from the inside of her room—no, not a voice, but voices—she hears the sound of a fist connecting with something, hears somebody grunt, hears the sound of what can only be her bedside lamp tilting and shattering on the floor.

She should leave. She should shut the door, call the police and get out of here. But she knows these voices, and stays rooted to the spot, trying to process the meaning of this, trying to understand.

It's Peter's voice she recognizes first, hearing it in patches: "—_no right_ to be here—"

"More right than you do, Parker—"

"Stay away from her!"

"Why, cuz the two of you are—" MJ hears another clatter, and Harry exclaims, "_Fuck!_" followed on the heels of a growl that can only mean he is preparing another hit. She hears a series of slams, hears their ragged breathing and curses and the sound of her furniture possibly getting destroyed, but she can't bring herself to do anything: she doesn't come any closer, or try to leave, because it doesn't make any sense.

Why isn't Peter winning?

He should be able to best Harry. _Easily_. He should be able to do it blindfolded, with his arms tied behind his back. And yet from the sound of it, Peter is every bit as winded as Harry is—from the sound of it, they're fighting an even fight.

Could MJ have been wrong? She feels a sudden heat in her cheeks, either of embarrassment, or fear for her own sanity. Oh, god. She imagined the entire thing up. Peter isn't Spiderman. She just—she just had some stupid, unfounded, adolescent crush on him, and so like a teenager she romanticized him, gave him a power he doesn't possess. Maybe Peter is just that—Peter Parker, photographer, ordinary friend and nephew and neighbor.

She is jerked out of her thoughts by the impact of somebody flying against the wall.

"How's _that_, Parker?"

Another thud. "It doesn't have to _be_ like this—"

"Like _hell _it doesn't!" Harry roars. "And now, on top of everything, I turn around and you're _fucking_ her?"

"_Jesus_, Harry—"

Another crash. MJ is paralyzed. She should be afraid, but there is something so unexpected about this whole scenario, something so morbid and strange. She thinks to herself that if Gwen were here she would never have let this happen. She looks up, toward the ceiling, as if she could will Gwen here to fix this.

They all used to be so close. The four of them. Harry and MJ, Peter and Gwen. Back when their futures were all plotted out, back when MJ was discontented and yearning but still safe, still secure, still knowing where she belonged in the bubble the four of them inhabited, for however short of a time. She closes her eyes just for a moment, listening to the sound of the two best friends beating the shit out of each other—when had it come to this? If she had stayed, if she hadn't run off to Chicago without looking back, could she have prevented it? Even if she could, how would she have prevented something she didn't even understand?

"Don't lie to me! Don't you fucking _lie_ to me, Parker!"

"Mary Jane has _nothing_ to do with this, leave her out of it—"

"Sure, leave her out of it so the two of you can betray me, go behind my back—she belongs with _me_, she always has, so whatever the _fuck_ you think you're doing—"

The sound that comes next is ear-shattering and shakes the floor beneath her. "Hey," she yells, because if they carry on they are going to destroy the place. "Hey!"

The noise doesn't stop. Her voice is barely audible over it anyway.

She grabs the doorknob. "Whatever is going on in here—"

Her brain hasn't even fully processed the danger before she screams. Harry has evidently hoisted a chair up, aiming for Peter, and it is coming right at her through the open doorway. She throws her hands up and shuts her eyes, bracing herself for the unholy impact, knowing in some grim and primal part of herself that there is no time to duck, no chance to escape, only a split second of horror to wait.

When she finally opens her eyes Peter hands are around the chair, and it's still hovering just inches from her face. He starts setting it down and MJ watches it with disbelieving eyes, releasing a strained and almost painful gasp of relief. Her knees are shaking and she is weak from preparing herself for the blow that never came.

Harry speaks first. There is none of the malice in his face that she heard only seconds before.

"I'm sorry," he says. His eyes are wide. "Mary Jane—I'm sorry."

She looks between the two boys, trying to catch her breath, to ground herself. They're both battered and bruised and staring at her as if she is a vase about to tip over. A quick sweep of the room confirms what she already knew: her room is in tatters, the lamp shattered and the desk splintered, the bar to her closet ripped off and the clothes all strewn out on the floor.

They are only things. She doesn't care about them all that much. But she feels her blood simmering under her skin, feels a rage that she can't even express to the two of them. Who are they, to make decisions for her, to meddle with her life? Who are they, to play God, as if they are the ones in charge?

"Get out."

Harry juts out his chin. Peter doesn't react.

"I said _get out_," she says, louder this time. "Both of you."

"I'm not leaving until he leaves," says Peter. He's still panting, and she can see a bead of sweat dripping down his face.

"Oh, wouldn't you like that," says Harry, standing there stubbornly.

For the first time since she arrived back in New York, she feels a genuine and pulsing fear, so overwhelming that everything else doesn't matter: her history with Harry, her feelings for Peter, the consequence of her actions and words. She wants them out. She wants them _gone_. She wants this one place, if not this place then _any_ place, where she can be by herself and out of either of their reach, even for a _day_.

But it will never happen. Harry will always be lingering here, torturing her, day in and day out. And Peter has his own special brand of torture, one he isn't even aware of, one that he inflicts with his mere existence.

Suddenly she feels claustrophobic, suffocated by this city and the few people who seem to take up all the space in it. Her dreams were supposed to come true here. Her dreams _did_ come true here. So why can't she have this? Why can't she have the simple, uncomplicated life she always wanted, why can't she bask in the glow of her career achievements and just _live_ her _own life_, free of this drama?

She should never have come back. She is more certain of this now than ever.

She takes a deep breath. She's going to scream at them, at the top of her lungs, and Peter seems to know this better than Harry does, because she can sense his anticipatory wince. But just as soon as her chest fills with air, she deflates. She is drained. She is exhausted. Nobody will give her answers, and she is sick of worrying and wondering and feeling unwelcome in her own home. She just wants—she _needs_—she can't even think of what she can fix, where she can go, how she can even begin. If she could undo this morning, running into Harry with Peter; if she could undo last year, when she ran away; if she could undo that one drink, that elevator ride to a hotel room, that night when she was young and stupid and full of hope for things well out of her reach, and gave them all to Harry without even knowing his name.

"I can't take this," she says, her voice barely carrying through the room. "Please. Please, both of you, just go."

For a few seconds neither of them moves, looking shiftily at each other. MJ is impatient, her teeth gnawing so hard her skull aches, her angry heart pounding in her ears. She hates to resort to it, because it goes against every feminist notion Gwen tried to beat into her head, but she knows that the only thing that will startle them into leaving is if she starts to cry. She squeezes her eyes shut—she's an actress, damn it—and sure enough, when she opens them back up and feels a hot stream of tears rolling down her cheeks, they both immediately start shuffling awkwardly.

"Please," she says, just to get them moving, and that's when they finally start to walk out. She waits until she hears the door shut behind her and swipes the tears off of her face.

Her mind is buzzing, still trying to process everything, but she won't let it. Thoughtlessly, she starts to pick up the shambles of her bedroom, sweeping the glass into a corner and folding the clothes and moving the broken desk out of the way. She sits on the bed and then lies back, staring up at her ceiling, the only unmarred part of the room. As she stares at the surface, white and blank with one crack in the plaster, she starts to feel restless. It's nearing midnight and neither of her roommates has returned. She fishes her down coat out from the pile of clothes, shoves on warm socks and boots, and shuts the door behind her.

It isn't as cold as she expected it to be out on the roof this time of night. She sits down on a raised block of cement just high enough to serve as a bench and tucks her hands into her pockets. She is waiting for him. She knows it looks that way, too. But she still feels compelled, like she cannot be satisfied until she has her certainty back. Because if Peter isn't Spiderman, then who is?

The sky above her is clear and crisp. She stares up at it and is struck by some snippet of a long forgotten song: _by and by, by and by, the moon is half a lemon pie … _

She struggles to remember the rest, trying to dig deeper into her unconscious for it, but then the snippet is gone, gone so fast that she almost imagined the sound of it in her head. Still, she is certain of the voice who sang it, twenty some years ago; she can't remember when or where, but she knows it was her mother who sang it, once upon a time.

An hour passes. She grows more anxious with every minute. Was it a fluke, that he met her up here the first time? Has he seen her up here now, and is he deliberately avoiding her? And if MJ has been wrong all along—if it really isn't Peter behind the mask—then who the hell was she talking to that night? Why did she feel such an intense connection to him?

She wonders if she should feel guilty, for possibly having these feelings for two different men at the same time. But as soon as the thought crosses her mind she almost laughs out loud. Whether or not Peter and Spiderman are one in the same, neither of them wants anything to do with her. Moral dilemma solved.

"You must have a thing for hanging out on rooftops."

MJ lurches up to her feet in surprise, and instantly regrets it. She wants to seem self-assured and breezy and in less than a second she is falling apart. Only once she collects herself does she realize the magnitude of what is happening—that he's _speaking_ to her. It happened so fast that she didn't even think to listen to the rhythm of it, to try and find any familiarity in his tone.

She sets a hand on her hip. Once she is facing him she finds that it is easier to assume her confidence. "And you must have a thing for wearing fourth-of-July themed spandex."

This earns her a surprised chuckle. She allows herself the smile that creeps on her lips.

"It's versatile. And flexible."

"I have no doubt," she says, with a teasing lilt.

"And red and blue suit me," he adds.

She shifts her weight onto her other hip, still examining him. "How would anybody ever know? You never take off your mask."

"Sure I do."

She raises her eyebrows, challenging him. She feels like a kid in high school again, like this is the first time she has ever bantered or flirted with a guy, and is surprised by how smoothly it is going.

"Well?" she says, prompting him.

He laughs. "Nice try. Not here."

It's the answer she was expecting, but she feigns disappointment, taking a few steps away. She knows she should be paying attention to his voice, should be listening for signs of Peter or not-Peter, but there is a nervous and happy sensation blossoming in her chest and she can't focus on that, can only focus on words and adrenaline and the two curious, eyeless holes that are staring at her from their perch.

"That's a shame, tiger," she says. "You've seen my face. Twice now."

There's a brief pause before a confession, an unapologetic and bold one that is so unlike Peter that for a moment she is absolutely certain it couldn't be him: "More times than that."

She has to duck her head down for a moment so he doesn't see the satisfied smirk on her face. "If that's the case," she says, once she has recovered, "then this hardly seems fair."

"The truth is, I'm hideous. Phantom of the Opera hideous."

This time the grin comes on too fast for her to hide it. If it is Peter, the only reason he would be able cite the Phantom of the Opera is if he had been listening to it blasting through her tiny closet-bedroom in the apartment they used to share all those years ago, when he would loudly and frequently complain how it was grating on his eardrums, and couldn't MJ listen to something that didn't make him want to shove his head through the plaster walls.

"What's so funny?" he protests, misinterpreting the grin. He is no longer crouching where he landed, but standing upright, and taking a step toward her. She is both thrilled and terrified by the closeness of him, knowing that these moments are stolen, that any second now he will have to swing away.

She shakes her head. "You're too cocky to be hideous."

"Cocky? Ouch," he says, clutching his spandex-sheathed heart. "Hurt me."

She takes a step closer. There are still a few feet of distance between them now, but on the expanse of the rooftop it seems like a much more intimate space than that.

"Why are you here?" she asks, only half-teasing, her voice low.

His head tilts to the side. "I could ask you the same thing."

She stares at him, waiting out his silence. _I asked you first_, she could say, batting her eyelashes, whipping her long hair over her shoulder. But she didn't ask to be coy. She wants to know—_has_ to know—that she isn't imagining this electricity between them, that it isn't all in her mind, and for some reason she wants him to admit it first.

"You looked like you could use some company," he finally says.

She purses her lips. It's not a bad answer, but somehow she was hoping for more. "Then keep me company. Stay awhile." She stretches her arms out, gesturing toward him, taking a step back in the process. It's almost a relief. "Tell me about yourself."

"You know I can't stay long."

"Yeah," she says softly. Her voice sounds sad, and she didn't mean for it to. She doesn't want this to be heavy, doesn't want it to have the pressure and complication that seems to have dominated the rest of her life. She adds a light, "I'll take what I can get."

He seems to be considering her in the silence that follows, so she waits for him to speak. "You were gone for a long time."

"You noticed," she says. "You know, I didn't think you even knew my name."

"I'm glad that you're back."

She isn't imagining the change in his tone, the shift of his body. She feels her breath catch in her throat as he takes a few deliberate steps forward. It's an excruciating kind of anticipation, the kind that makes it feel like the air is screaming and her knees are locked and rigid and she isn't even sure how to make her body respond to the closeness, but somehow it is, without her knowing or understanding how. One of her shoulders arches toward him, and then another, and then she steps, closing the remaining distance.

She can hear him breathing through the mask, low and steady and sure, with no hint of the trepidation she is feeling herself.

It's her move, or at least she thinks it is. She could reach up right now. She sees the seam where the mask meets the rest of the suit, and she imagines how easy it would be to reach up to that thin line, to roll up his mask and expose him, even just his lips.

Would he let her? Or would he shrink away—would he be furious with her and never meet her up here again—would it be the end of everything she has wondered about for years, gone, in a flash, because of one stupid mistake?

He isn't moving. Isn't that permission enough? She recognizes the cue, his eyes are locked on hers through the mask and practically screaming at her to _do it_, and she is thinking to herself that this is probably the most simple, the most singularly perfect moment that she spent too long waiting for, and yet she is frozen and unsure and letting it slip out from under her fingers.

She raises her hands, with the intention of touching the mask, but they never reach him. She gets as far as her waist, and then stops short, awkwardly folding her arms into her chest.

It's wrong. It feels wrong. All this deceit, all this tiptoeing around each other. She doesn't want Spiderman. She wants _Peter_. Regardless of whether or not they are one in the same—she doesn't care. If Peter has to come to her like this, wearing a mask and hiding every piece of himself from her, then she doesn't want it. She wants this to be real. She wants it to feel like it _means_ something.

"I'm—I have feelings for someone," she says, ducking her chin into her chest, taking a step back. Gone is the woman with confidence and bravado, replaced by the awkward, annoying girl she has always been in Peter's eyes.

He reaches an arm out and scratches the back of his neck self-consciously. "I thought you might." The words aren't accusatory, but somehow grave and knowing.

"It's not—no," she says, realizing the implication. "It's not what you think. It's not—it's not Harry."

"You don't have to explain."

"But I do," she blurts. "I really, I have to, I do."

Her phone blares in her pocket, interrupting. She dismisses it, staring into the void of Spiderman's eyes, wondering if she is capable of saying the beautiful, awful, impossible truth out loud for the first time.

"You should probably answer that. It's late. Whoever is calling …"

She checks her phone. "It's my roommate."

When she looks back up his muscles are tensed and prepared, and his face is pointed a few blocks away. "I'd better get going."

"_Wait_."

She is surprised that he does. She has no idea what she has left to say, because there is nothing in her, nothing except confessions that could ruin her, that could make her life even more unsalvageable than it already is.

"If you see Peter—tell him to be careful," she says.

It isn't what she wants to say, but it will have to suffice. Spiderman stops on the ledge, and for the first time she has talked to him his shoulders twitch self-consciously, and there is something reserved in his voice: "Yeah. I will."

And then he's gone.

Now that she's alone she feels the full heat of her embarrassment and buries her head in her hands, grabbing fistfuls of her hair and wondering what on _earth_ could possibly be fucking _wrong_ with her. Is she just dead set on sabotaging herself? Why, when confronted with the one opportunity she has been torturing herself just _imagining_ the _idea _of it, did she let it slip away? What was she trying to prove? So what if it isn't Peter, at least _somebody_ wants her, and if it is Peter—then why hesitate? Why does it have to be a certain way, why does she have some fairy tale notion of him being with her without the mask? Peter Parker is not the fairy tale kind of boy. She should have seized the moment while she had it.

It's too late. He's probably halfway across the city by now, and he'll probably never come back.

"Shit," she mutters to herself, heading back inside. She pockets her cell phone, wondering what Lexie wanted, why she was calling so late.

By the time she gets down to the apartment she has somewhat calmed herself. This isn't the end of the world. She'll see him again, and when she does, she'll explain herself. She'll tell him everything. She'll take off the mask, kiss him, and tell him, and it will be easier this time, because she'll know that it's coming.

She opens the door, exhausted from the day's events, and is immediately met with Lexie bawling on the couch, a white-faced, expressionless Lizzie beside her.

"What's wrong?" MJ immediately demands. Her first thought is _Harry_, and she isn't sure why.

Lexie tries to speak first, but all that comes out is a series of hiccups and hysteria. MJ should be sensitive, but there is a hot panic coiling in her stomach, and the longer they go without answering her the worse it gets.

"What?" she asks again, searching both of their faces.

Lizzie looks to her, her expression ashen, her voice shaking. "Darien's dead."

MJ stares at her, not even allowing herself to fully process the words. "Darien," she repeats, as if the name is foreign to her, as if Lizzie's utterance is beyond comprehension.

"He was _murdered_," Lexie finally chokes out, spluttering with snot and tears.

MJ stammers a response. "That's not—that can't be … "

Darien had never missed a performance before tonight. She didn't think much of it. Everyone has had to have an understudy cover for them at some point. She thought maybe a family emergency, or the flu, or anything but—dead? _Murdered?_

"How?" is all she can think to ask.

Lizzie's eyes are grave as she passes MJ her laptop, which has one web page open on the screen. MJ feels a chill in her bones before she even reads the text. There is an infamous picture of the Green Goblin posted under the headline, a picture she has seen many times, one that perfectly captures the sinister grin and the soulless, dark eyes against the cool green metal of his armor.

_Murder in Manhattan: Goblin impersonator, or the real thing? _the headline screams.

"No," says MJ, shaking her head. She scans the article. Darien was murdered by a man in armor strikingly similar to the Goblin's, one who also used a hoverboard, one who killed him with an explosive. The further she reads the more she feels like the earth is moving out from under her. She sinks down and finds the coffee table to sit on. "No." Her voice sounds like it's coming from a body a few feet away, not from her own. "When—when did this happen?"

"Sometime before the performance," Lizzie answers. "The story just broke. The producers found out halfway through the show, and decided not to tell us."

"Fuckers," Lexie adds indignantly.

These two girls sitting in front of MJ, these two almost-strangers, they have no idea what this means. They have no appreciation for the fear in the heart of every New Yorker, of any person who has ever flinched at a shadow in the sky, any person who left their apartment in whatever shoes they could run the fastest in, carrying the least amount of things that they could.

It's a nightmare. It's starting all over again.

"I wish Harry were here. I'm scared," says Lexie, in a pathetic voice.

MJ's gaze is hard and unforgiving. "You should be." She hands Lizzie back her laptop, and starts walking toward the ruin of her bedroom without another word.

She is suddenly grateful that she didn't take her chance up on the roof. There is some solace in the not knowing what might have been. Now she can leave again, leave without feeling torn or confused or heartbroken, because that's what she has to do, isn't it? She has to leave.

She settles onto her disheveled bed, ignoring the mess of her room. Lexie lets out another sob, long and low. MJ shuts her eyes and wills herself not to hear it, and the instant her eyes close she sees Darien—stupid, arrogant, slick as he was, with that unbearable smirk across his face—even he doesn't deserve this. How many people around MJ will die, before this is all over? Will it ever _be _over?

As if on cue, a siren wails and cuts through the night, and several more join it. MJ shoves her face into the mattress, then grabs her pillow and shoves it over her head to muffle the noise. She is sick of being here, sick of being in her own skin. She presses her face further down into the sheets, presses it until she can hardly breathe, and wills this all to go away, wills herself to disappear.


	20. Chapter 20

**Perpendicular**

* * *

MJ tosses and turns all night. Every time she shuts her eyes she sees the Goblin, and feels a visceral jolt of fear that makes her entire body flinch. Once the clock hits six in the morning she throws her covers off of her, giving up on sleep entirely. She stumbles around in the dark for a pair of pants and a coat—her bedside lamp is broken now, after all—until eventually she finds clothes that feel warm and functional if not appropriate for public use.

It doesn't matter anyway. Nobody is out at this time of morning but bums. It's still dark out, and cold, but MJ is walking too fast to notice. She wonders why she is out here in the first place until she rounds the corner and finds herself facing a familiar building. She stops for a moment, staring at it, wondering if she is really going to do this. But she is too exhausted for social convention and normalcy right now, too exhausted to care what anyone thinks of her.

It takes so long for Peter to answer the door that she thinks he must not be home, but she stands there anyway, uncertain and on edge. She knocks again, and this time she hears a weary voice call, "It's open."

The words come too slowly, too thickly. She can tell he is hurt before she has her hand on the doorknob. It must not be terrible, though, or he wouldn't let her in. And he does know it's her, doesn't he? Who else would show up at his apartment as inappropriately as this?

She opens the door and there he is, on the couch, a makeshift Ziploc bag ice pack on his head and an almost defiant expression on his face.

"You're bleeding," she says.

He waves his hand dismissively. "Shut the door."

"Like, a lot," she says, walking over to him, trying to assess the damage of it. "Are you sure you shouldn't go to a hospital or something?"

If anything, Peter looks exasperated at this suggestion. "No, no, it's fine."

MJ stands there, feeling useless, hesitating a few feet away from him. Now that she's closer she can see that the bleeding is superficial, and he's right, it probably isn't the end of the world, but any ordinary person would need stitches. She pulls out her phone, the new one that she finally let herself buy once the musical turned into a steady gig. Peter looks at it warily and says, "Are you—don't call anyone."

"I'm not."

"Then what're you—"

"I'm—I'm googling head wounds," she says, flustered.

"Hah!" She isn't expecting the sharp laugh to bounce off the walls of the apartment.

MJ feels her face burning. "What?" she snaps, trying to look self-righteous, but she catches the absurd look on his face, all bruised and weary and mouth stretching like a jack-o-lantern, that she feels herself losing her composure.

He stares at her with that tired, lazy smile for just a beat too long. "Nothing, nothing," he says with a teasing lilt, looking away.

The page is taking too long to load on her phone anyway. She tucks it back into her coat pocket self-consciously. The truth is, Gwen would have known what to do. Gwen had instincts, and common sense, and that reassuring, almost motherly way of taking control of things. It didn't hurt that she'd actually taken first aid courses and actually knew how to differentiate injuries beyond holy-crap-you're-bleeding.

MJ, on the other hand, has no idea what to do in this instant. She decides to listen to Peter, at least for this time, and not try to help him. He's lived this long, hasn't he? It's a morbid thought, but it's been years. He must know his own limits.

Now that there is an uneasy pause in the conversation she thinks he's going to ask her what the hell she is doing here, unannounced and frazzled and wearing what appear to be pajama bottoms. But instead he gestures for her to join him on the couch, displaying one of his rare moments of deciding to take charge of an awkward situation. She walks over and sits beside him, and they're both kind of tilted toward each other so their knees, or at least the fabric between them, are brushing against each other, but MJ doesn't move and neither does he.

"Harry didn't do this to you, did he?" MJ asks, worried that the fight continued past the apartment door.

Peter's mouth tightens into a thin line. "No," he says after a moment.

"You know I knew him," she says, her voice mild and separate. It still feels like it's happening to someone else. Some other city, some other girl, some other life. "The guy that … got killed by the impersonator."

Peter nods solemnly.

"I just …" MJ dismisses the notion almost as soon as the beginnings of it slip out of her mouth, but she can't help it. _I just feel like this isn't a coincidence_. It's almost self-important, to think that the Goblin or any of his followers might even give the slightest thought about her, but she has this warped sense of apprehension and guilt. As if this is only going to get worse; as if she has something to do with it.

She lets the words trail off. Maybe she just feels this way because she knows Peter will be in danger, and this time he will be in danger alone. There is no Gwen to patch him up, to understand without demands or confusion or complicated feelings. Back then he had someone to take care of him. And as much as MJ wants to be that person, he evidently doesn't trust her enough, or doesn't think she is worth the risk of telling his secrets. And she can't make him change his mind.

When she looks up, Peter's gaze on hers is steady and watchful. Her mouth is open, stalled with thing she can't say.

"I just can't believe it," she says eventually.

Peter looks away from her, staring at his lap. "I take it you didn't sleep much either."

"No," she agrees. Her right knee is touching his now, and it feels like the skin there is burning. She aches for more than the barest of contact, aches for those brief few moments on the rooftop last night before _this_. She searches his face and wonders what he is thinking, wonders if his mind has wandered to the same place hers has. She wonders what he thought she meant last night, when she confessed she had feelings for someone. And then she stops wondering, she won't let herself, because it is all trivial next to Darien's murder.

Hasn't that always been their problem, though? Hasn't it always been that the moment she feels like there is the slightest chance of a future with Peter, something more demanding and more important and bigger than the both of them gets in the way?

"Do you think it's him?" she suddenly blurts. "Do you think he's come back?"

Peter is quick to answer. "It's not the original Green Goblin. No."

She doesn't bother to ask how he knows this. She is too tired for this game, where she will ask and he will stutter for a few moments but then produce some passably logical excuse about how he works in the media, or how he talked to Spider-Man about it. In the old days she might have enjoyed watching him jump through hoops, might have enjoyed having the privileged knowledge of his deepest secret without him realizing it. But now it is exhausting, and sad.

"Do me a favor," he asks, and there is some quality to his voice that sounds younger, like it did back when they were in college. She has heard this voice before, but in rare moments of tenderness, always directed toward Gwen. It's the kind of thing she only knows from living with them for so many years.

_Anything_, she thinks to herself. "What?" she says instead.

"Don't go back there. Don't go back to that apartment."

He is asking her to stay without using the word. She wonders if he realizes this. There is something much more intimate in the word _stay_ than there is in the words _don't go_, but she is so close to him—breathing in his scent, sharing his air, suffocated by the sound of that familiar voice—too close to deny him.

The answer is poised on her tongue. It was before he even finished the request. "Alright."

She is staring straight in front of her, toward the apartment wall, listening to a gust of wind rush against the window behind them. Her thoughts are far away, but still revolve around Peter—just not this Peter, but the Peter she knows he can be, the Peter who jokes with her on rooftops and knows more about her than he will ever admit out loud, the Peter who used to listen to her bitch about auditions over bad take-out food and wouldn't hesitate to make some unnecessarily sarcastic comment about whatever shade of eyeliner she was wearing that day. She misses the Peter she was in love with before she knew she was in love. She knows he's in there, somewhere. She has to believe that he is.

She is so absorbed by this belief that the sudden pressure of his arm around her shoulders yanks her back to reality hard and fast. She glances up at him. He has put the ice pack down, freeing the arm that is now snaked around her upper back. There is a curious expression on his face, not quite as if he is asking for permission, but like he is waiting for her to reciprocate, waiting and observing like this is a carefully planned experiment of his that could go terribly wrong.

The stillness of it takes her breath away, but time is still moving forward, and she has to move. She eases sideways, into the crook of his arm, letting her head rest against his chest. His heart is slamming against her ear. She closes her eyes, knowing that he can't see her face, and listens to its rhythm.

"Are you scared?" she asks, a little breathless. Because she is terrified. She is terrified, even now, in this perfect and impossible place where Peter rests his chin on her head, and threads his fingers lightly through the tangles in her hair.

His voice is so startlingly close and barely above a whisper. "All the time."

She feels the telltale sting of tears burning the back of her eyelids and blinks them away. She has to tell him. She has to tell him what she knows, because he sounds so lonely, so hopeless, and while he will be angry that she has discovered his truth, she knows that there is a part of him that will be relieved. She can hear the burden in his voice, the burden of bearing the weight of this secret on his own.

But all the resolve in the world disappears when he is holding her like this, in this fragile, fleeting moment. She can't ruin it. There is so little left in her life that is this precious to her.

"Please don't ask me to leave New York," she says. She hasn't decided whether or not she will go, but regardless of her choice, she can't bear the idea of Peter trying to get rid of her again. Her whole body tenses in the aftermath of her request, and she wishes she had just kept her damn mouth shut and let herself have this, but she can't do it. She can't. She has always been the one who pushes it too far, who asks for too much.

She can't see Peter's expression, so she has no idea what to anticipate. The waiting is feels like there is a bubble of dread expanding in her chest, and she is just waiting for it to pop.

"I won't," he finally says. She lets herself sink back into him, her eyes heavy, her limbs tingling with fatigue and relief. Enough time passes that their breathing evens out and she feels her eyelids staring to slide shut, and her grip on the present moment slip away. He speaks again and his voice is so low and she is so far gone that she wonders if it is only her imagination: "I'm too selfish for that."

* * *

She wakes up to the sound of Peter saying her name. The third time she hears it her eyes snap open and the events of the last day slam at her in full force.

"Your phone has been going off," he says gently. He's holding it up to her. He must have pulled it out of her coat pocket.

"Oh." Her tongue feels somehow too thick for her mouth, the way it does when she wakes up from an intense and dreamless sleep. She blinks and tries to bring the phone into focus. The screen tells her it's past eleven in the morning. "I'm sorry," she says, extricating herself from him clumsily. There's a patch of her drool on his shoulder and she rips her eyes away from it, too preoccupied to feel the appropriate amount of embarrassment over it.

Peter doesn't seem to notice, or doesn't care. "I didn't want to wake you, but it went off like three times," he says.

Sure enough, there are three missed calls. One is from the show director. Another is from Brad, the baby-faced understudy who she can only imagine is scared shitless right now. The last one is, to her displeasure, from Harry.

"Are you going to call him back?"

MJ doesn't have to ask to know he's talking about Harry. There's an edge to his voice, but it barely conceals the vulnerability beneath it. He isn't just asking for her sake, she thinks. He's asking for his own sake, too.

She sets the phone down and exhales long and slow. "Of course not," she says.

Peter lets out a little hum of response. The wound on his head is all but healed, just a scab surrounded by a crust of old blood. She tries not to let her eyes linger on it. She doesn't want him to feel like he has to explain it away.

"What ever happened between you two, anyway?" she asks.

Peter straightens his posture on the couch. She thinks that he will tell her that it's a long story, or that she doesn't need to know. She thinks that he'll just brush her off the way he normally does. Instead, he says, "It was a lot of things."

She waits for him to continue. He exhales lowly, his expression resigned.

"After you left … Harry was upset. And I'm not entirely sure, but that's when I think—well, you always knew he had a problem with prescription drugs."

MJ nods because she should, but she is suddenly getting the impression that maybe Peter knew more about the problem than she did. She feels a futile pang of guilt for distancing herself from Harry in those last few months they were together.

"In any case," Peter says wearily, "things got out of hand with him. And I … wasn't in a position to help him."

"Of course not," says MJ. It should have been her job—not Peter, whose fiancé had been murdered by a madman. It should have been her job to stay with Harry, to make sure he was taking care of himself, but she wasn't thinking of that then. She closes her eyes and imagines how it could have been. She wonders if she and Harry would have been happy in Los Angeles, if they would have found a sunny apartment and settled in together, if she could have learned to be content with what she had instead of yearning for things she couldn't.

Before she can wonder any further, Peter says, "And then—well, the Goblin was killed."

MJ nods slowly.

"Harry's father died that same night. And I'm sure he's told you what he thinks. That Spiderman killed his father." Without waiting for MJ to confirm or deny this, he continues, "He was at my door that night. Drunk, delirious, just—like he had completely lost himself, like he wasn't there anymore. He wanted to know where he could find Spiderman. And I wouldn't tell him. And then—Jesus, I know this sounds crazy, but he had a gun."

"_What?_" MJ can't hold back the gasp of surprise that escapes her.

Peter's lips form a grim line, his eyes trailing the wall like he is remembering the scene unfolding in this very apartment. "Yeah. I don't think he—I don't think he was in his right mind, not enough to realize what he was doing, what he was saying. He started making all these claims—that I was in on everything with Spiderman, that I knew all along he had planned to kill his father, and even that—he even thought that I knew where you were, and that I was lying to him about that, too."

MJ thinks of her own days in the aftermath, how she spent them so withdrawn into herself, barely comprehending the external world. She remembers the nights she did not lie awake wondering about Harry, she remembers the regret she did not feel, she remembers the ease of letting him go without a second thought.

"I had no idea," she says.

Peter shifts uncomfortably, moving away from her and then back on the couch. "I know. Harry did a pretty good job of keeping it from you."

MJ looks up at him. "Is that why you told me to leave him? Right before …" She stops mid-sentence. When did it become so hard just to say Gwen's name?

"Yeah," says Peter. "I just—he loved you. I honestly didn't think he would ever hurt you, so I never said anything. Until Gwen told me about how he got drunk and pushed you into that wall."

MJ holds her breath at the mention of Gwen, not so much at the memory of Harry rattling her that one time, but Peter mistakes it for a delayed reaction of fear. His eyebrows raise and his eyes soften and he looks so earnest and incredibly guilty, like something in him is cracking, something he has been holding back.

"I should have warned you before that happened. I should have seen that coming. I _knew_ what he was doing with those drugs."

She is caught off guard by his vehemence, by the almost pleading tone in his voice. The conversation almost strikes her as absurd. How could Peter possibly blame himself for the stupid things that MJ has done?

"Peter …"

He isn't finished. "I didn't know you in high school, Mary Jane. I didn't know we were neighbors. But I heard your father yelling, I heard him plain and clear between the houses every other night, and when I realized that that was _you_—all those years—I …" He swallows hard, shaking his head, and says, "I was the one who told Gwen you should move in with us. After college. I couldn't stand the idea of you going back there."

She is perfectly still, disbelieving and watching him tell her this. She has always had the impression that Peter has distanced himself from her, since the day they first met. She has blamed it on a lot of things: they had nothing in common, for one, and he was dating her best friend. And when Gwen was no longer a factor, MJ figured it had to do with the insurmountable chasm she left behind. Above all she assumed that the biggest thing to come between the two of them was Spiderman himself: Peter would never be close to her, because he would never tell her the truth.

She has never considered this. The idea that he has been looking after her all along, steadily and quietly trying to fight for her safety, making up for years of guilt for something he is blameless for.

At once she regrets any moment she ever doubted him, any time she ever let her frustration get the better of her. Peter has been withdrawn, has been overly mysterious and occasionally moody, but above all he has been on her side, even in the moments she was most determined not to see.

"I'm sorry," he says, a little hesitantly, and that's when she realizes that there are tears welling up in her cheeks. One spills with a fat thud on fabric of her pants.

"No, I'm—don't be sorry," she says, the words thick. There is no way to express what this means to her, after years of wishing and pining and torturing herself, trying to take up even an inch of his universe, a millisecond of his attention. It feels like years of unrest have finally settled. He may not love her, he may never love her the way that she wishes he would, but he cares. He has always cared. And knowing that is the singularly good thing that has come out of her unbearable childhood, and the awful past few years.

It's suddenly hard to look at him. It feels as if he has had her under a microscope for all this time, as if her every flaw and scar has been magnified without her knowing. There is nothing about her, she thinks, that he doesn't already know. Except maybe the one thing that has been plain in front of his face for the past four years.

The words are snot-filled and graceless and nowhere near enough: "_Thank_ you."

Peter just shakes his head at her. It feels like the room is stiflingly small, even though he is sitting on the other end of the couch, completely out of reach. His eyes have never latched on to hers so deliberately, and she is so astonished and captivated by it that she has a distant recollection of her mother telling her not to stare at the sun.

There is a ghost of a smile on Peter's lips, both reassuring and sad. "You deserved better."

* * *

They can't cancel the show that night. It is callous and almost inhuman, but business is business, and they are still in the middle of one of the busiest holiday weekends of the year. The rest of them are alive and breathing. They can't justify canceling a sold out show.

The director pulls her aside before curtain.

"Jane," he says, in a hushed voice. She cringes. _That's not my name_. "I just wanted to say that I appreciate how hard this must be for you. I know that you and Darien were—involved."

MJ is thankful for the darkness of hallway. She isn't sure how to compose her face, how she should react. It seems insensitive to deny it like she normally would, and irrelevant. He's dead. There is no changing what people thought they did or didn't do together, and in any case, it doesn't matter nearly as much in the wake of something of this magnitude happening.

"I understand if you need a few days off, to process everything."

"No," says MJ, maybe a little too quickly. She bites the inside of her cheek and makes herself wait to continue. "Thank you. But really, I'll be alright."

The truth is, while everybody around her is crying and talking in hushed whispers and hugging each other, MJ's thoughts are far from Darien. She walks through the haze of tears in her own separate world.

The uneasy feeling has returned. There is something she is missing, something that is gnawing at the end of her every unfinished thought. But every time she tries to focus, something distracts her. Her roommates are weeping in the dressing rooms. Brad is pacing around with a marked up script. The producers are tight-lipped and asking too many questions. The memory of Peter's arm around her shoulder is still fresh and demanding as a bruise.

The show finishes with its usual flourish. MJ hears the roar of the crowd, feels herself fold her body mechanically into a bow for the final curtain call. She cannot see the audience in the darkness, but she can feel the energy, the aliveness in their sound. They are all so unsuspecting, on their weekend trips from Ohio or Georgia or Maine. The Goblin is only a passing term to them, but to her it is a warning call. _Get out of here_, she is thinking to herself, to the lot of them. This city is not what it seems.

She avoids talking to anyone as she tugs her feet out of her dance shoes and undoes the mess of red curls perched on her head. She promised Peter she would come straight back to his apartment. She slips on a coat and a pair of warm boots and avoids the stage door altogether, opting to duck out from an unmarked exit instead.

When she opens the door she finds Harry waiting for her there, his posture rigid, his expression stony. She startles and sucks in a breath. He doesn't move, as if he has been like this all night.

"Jesus, Harry." She looks behind her, to the side, in the distance. There are people walking around, and that is a relief. He notices her accounting for this and grows visibly annoyed.

"I just wanted to make sure you were okay," he says defensively.

She hitches her bag up on her shoulder. "Yeah, well, I'm fine."

"The Goblin—"

"I heard," she snaps, walking past him. "We all heard." Leave it to Harry to try and use Darien's death to his advantage. She knows what he is trying to do here—stirring up old memories, trying to make her remember the way they relied on each other back in the days they all lived in fear. It is low, even for Harry.

"What have you been reading?" Harry asks, rushing to catch up with her.

MJ squares her shoulders. "Honestly? Nothing. I've read nothing about it. A friend of mine is _dead_, Harry. That's all I needed to know."

Harry has the audacity to snort. "Friend," he says. His voice is bitter. "That's a funny way of putting it."

She can't for the life of her explain the sheer, unadulterated rage that swells up in her at this comment. It's not as if she ever spent one moment defending Darien while he was still alive, but this somehow crosses a line. It isn't just that he is disrespecting MJ by prying into her business; but he is disrespecting a dead man, one who, for all intents and purposes, never truly did anything wrong.

"Fuck off," she says bitingly.

Harry barely even reacts to the words, still matching her pace. She was headed toward Peter's apartment, but she sharply changes direction. It seems important not to lead him there.

"You should read the _Bugle_. I think they have a point. This Goblin—_impersonator,_" Harry says, as if he has a distaste for the word—"he might not be all bad."

These are the words that have enough power to stop MJ dead in her tracks. "What did you just say?"

Harry looks indignant, rushing to speak before she can cut him off. "If you kept up with the news you would know he had a face-off with Spiderman last night."

MJ bites her lip, feeling her heart pound angrily in her ears. Of course she knows there was a face-off. She didn't need a goddamn newspaper when she had the bloody evidence sitting on their old worn-out couch.

"It just seems to me that maybe—maybe he's trying to help. Spiderman isn't what you think, Mary Jane. He's dangerous. And this Goblin impersonator … he might be the solution."

MJ doesn't want to give Harry the satisfaction of her attention, but she can't help it. She is rooted to the sidewalk, staring at him, overwhelmed with disbelief and horror. She wants to undo this conversation. She doesn't want to think that Harry, or anybody for that matter, is capable of thinking in this way. _Evil_, is the word that comes to mind. The things coming out of his mouth sound evil, and warped, like the way she imagined Nazis might talk. With a measured coolness in his voice, with this misguided confidence that he, above everyone and everything, is right.

"He killed a man," MJ says. Her voice sounds like it is echoing in her throat.

Harry's features are exaggerated under the streetlamp, the shadows under his brow dark and deep. "And Spiderman hasn't?"

"No, he hasn't," says MJ, "and I am _not_ having this conversation with you. Go home, Harry."

"Where are you going?" Harry asks. He is testy and fidgeting, his motions erratic. He clearly envisioned this encounter ending differently. He must hate that he has no power over her whatsoever anymore.

_None of your business_, MJ says, but this sounds immature, and almost as if it is inviting him to keep talking to her, to try and figure it out. She takes a breath and says again, "Harry. Go _home_."

If anything, he looks more offended and disbelieving than she does. He stands there for a few more seconds as if he is certain she will come to her senses and change her mind. When she doesn't, he lets out an angry huff of air, then breathes in sharply as if there is something nasty he intends to say to her before he goes. He must decide to let it go, though, because he starts turning away. MJ does the same, hoping that this is the end of it.

"Mary Jane."

She squeezes her eyes shut, exasperated and a little bit scared. Evidently he has decided not to hold back. "What?"

"When Parker gets bored of you—when he finds himself another pretty, well-bred OsCorp girl and dumps you on the street like last week's garbage—just remember I'm still here. That I wanted you when you were _nobody_. That I wanted you _first_."

She walks away from him without turning around. He must have spent a long time thinking up those words. He must have had them rattling in his head for weeks. She can tell by the practiced cruelty in his delivery, by the slow, deliberate steps he takes as he walks away.

Harry shouldn't have any power over her, and as she turns another corner, out of his sight, she convinces herself that he doesn't. _You deserved better_. She hears Peter's words and lets herself accept their truth. She doesn't deserve this man who can't build her up without trying first to tear her down. She doesn't know what she does deserve, and may be an unthinkable distance away from finding it, but she knows for sure it is going to be a hell of a lot better than Harry Osborn.

She cuts through the streets so that she is back on the normal route she would take back to Peter's apartment from the stage door. She hears footsteps starting to run at an alarming speed from behind her and turns around just in time to see Peter skid to a stop.

"You weren't at the stage door," he says, breathless.

"Yeah, I didn't—you were waiting for me?"

Peter is trying to sound casual and failing miserably at it. "I had nothing to do tonight anyway," he says, a bit too winded to pull of the shrug.

She smiles at him and he smiles back, all lopsided and goofy and unsure. She knows it isn't right to feel this kind of happiness, but she is walking beside Peter, and has earned one of his rare smiles. She dismisses the ugliness of her meeting with Harry, and the lingering unease she has felt since the Goblin impersonator appeared. It isn't anywhere close to being safe, to being content, to being whole or secure or at peace, but right now it feels like it's enough.

* * *

I'm going to finish this in June. I HAVE TO BE FINISHING THIS BY JUNE. Because dear God, it is literally 250 pages right now, so I should probably go outside in the real world and find myself some breathing human friends instead of writing about made-up ones. Except let's be real, then I couldn't exercise my God complex by controlling everything they think, say, and do, and where would the fun in THAT be.


	21. Chapter 21

**Perpendicular**

* * *

MJ and Peter don't talk much when they get back to his apartment. It's late, and they're both tired, so they sit shoulder-to-shoulder in a companionable silence on the couch for a little while. Eventually Peter flicks something off the couch and when she looks up at him curiously, there is a bare hint of a smirk on his face.

"You're shedding," he explains, holding up a fleck of glitter.

MJ pulls a strand of hair and waves it at him, knowing that a somewhat steady stream of glitter will rain down. "I think I've started to ingest it."

"Your organs probably sparkle."

She laughs, and Peter seems at first surprised, and then almost pleased with himself. She wonders if he's really gone that long without trying to make a joke. He shifts a little closer to her and unexpectedly reaches out to touch her hair, shaking loose some of the tendrils. It's such an intimate seeming gesture that at first she can't help but tense up in anticipation, but he is only shaking it to see if more glitter will come loose, which, of course, it does.

"It probably wouldn't be so bad if your hair weren't so long now," he says, watching in mock dismay as the glitter settles on the old couch.

"They made me grow it out for the show," she says, not sure whether or not she is defending it.

Peter shrugs. "It looks nice," he says noncommittally.

"It makes my ears look smaller."

"Ah. Yes. Your freakishly large dumb-o ears."

"Really, Parker?"

She's trying to sound offended, but she can't help the smile that breaks loose on her face. It's something he used to when they were in college, whenever she complained about herself, which she did back then readily and often. She couldn't get two words of a remark about her appearance out without Peter cutting in to make fun of her. She'd say she had a pig face and he'd let out a less-than-subtle "oink"; she'd complain about her ugly toenails and he'd throw her a pair of socks out of the laundry. It was his way of telling her to cut the crap, and it used to annoy the hell out of her.

"Sorry, sorry," he says. There's a gleam in his eye, though. "I'm jealous, is all. I have to take the subway. You can just _fly_."

She laughs out loud this time, swatting at him reflexively. The back of her hand hits his chest and he grabs it and says, "I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Your ears are the _least_ of your problems."

"Oh yeah?" she asks, raising an eyebrow. He lingers for a moment before letting her hand go.

Peter nods. "I'm afraid so," he says, giving her an ostentatious once-over. It's the first time he's been so unapologetic and forward about it—and if she isn't mistaken, his eyes are definitely lingering in some places. She has a sudden self-conscious urge to sit up straighter and suck in her stomach, but she likes this, the teasing, the fun, and she's afraid that one wrong move will end it like breaking a spell.

"First off, you're freakishly short," Peter continues.

"Uh-uh. I'm normal sized. You're a skyscraper."

"Anyone would look like a skyscraper next to a Keebler elf."

"I'm sorry," she says, "I can't hear you from all the way up there, speak up."

"Is that why you're always so _loud_?" Peter wonders. "Ever since I met you—"

"I'd watch where you're going with this, Parker—"

"No, no, this explains everything—"

"I'm not _loud, _I'm just—"

"_My only friends are imaaaaaginaryyyy_," Peter belts in the most god awful singing voice she has ever heard, citing one of her big musical numbers from the show. She is at first too dumbstruck to even attempt to assemble a comeback, so he continues: "_Nobody at school even nooootices meeee_—oof!"

She lunges forward like she's going to push him deeper into the couch and he anticipates her, catching both of her hands in his. She knows he is strong, has always known it even before she knew about his night job, but knowing it and feeling it are quite different from each other. She feels the surge of strength even in his fingers, which are now coiled between hers, and his arms that are locked against hers as if the full force of her body weight on him is nothing at all.

"You know what else?" he asks, unmistakably breathless.

"What?" She can practically feel his heart pulsing through the palms of his hands.

"Your eyes," he says, transfixed on her like a cat. "They're enormous, like big green traffic lights."

"Yeah, well, your nose is crooked."

"You laugh like a hyena."

"You _snore_ like a—"

She isn't prepared for it, not by a long shot. Her first thought when Peter leans forward so suddenly is that they are going to butt heads, that she won't be able to get out of his way in time. She closes her eyes and braces for impact but then his mouth crashes into hers, and her eyes fly open and a tiny gasp escapes her as her body arches forward toward him and her lips part in permission, and then every part of her body pulses and _aches_ in response to him before she can even understand what's happening.

His hands coil around her back, skimming the surface of the bare skin between her sweatpants and her tank top. He wraps his hands around her sides and pulls her into him so deftly that for a moment she feels like she has lost all concept of gravity, and then she is on top of him, wrapping her legs around his torso as he grabs her and lifts her up off the couch, standing upright with her in his arms.

This is nothing like she has ever experienced. In her life she has felt every range of emotion, from the heartbreak of her mother's death, the sweet taste of her own freedom, the fear for her own life and an excruciating loneliness punctuated with the sweetest bursts of joy, but this—this is incomprehensible, this is otherworldly, this makes everything else seem trivial and distant, like it all happened to somebody else. The heat of his body pressed against hers, the pressure of his arms around her—it's too much, it's not enough, she wants everything she can take from him but if she feels any more than this she might _burst_.

She feels her fingers twist into the fabric of his shirt, feels the tense, lean muscles of his back as he moves. Her eyes are still closed, the kiss deepening, and she is so overwhelmed by her own senses that she doesn't know where he's taking her until she feels her back pressed up against a wall.

They are so tangled in each other that she has no concept of where his body ends and where hers begins. All that's left is nerves and skin, and a devastating, overpowering swell of desire that she has spent too many years trying to ignore.

She wraps her legs tighter around him, still suspended between him and the wall, and he responds in kind by pushing himself closer to her. She can't breathe, she can't think, she is weak with _want_ and _disbelief_, because this can't be happening, so fast, so perfect, so intense. She has spent so long fantasizing about this moment and even in the wildest of daydreams she allowed herself, she could never have imagined _this_.

There is nothing gentle about it. Her fingers dig into his shoulders and he nips at her lower lip, the kiss deepening until they are crushing into each other with every fiber of their being. There is so much of him, she thinks, that she wants to touch, that she wants to know and understand and feel, and there is some stolen quality to these moments, like she has to have all of him _now_.

He slides her back down to the ground and her feet touch the cold hardwood of the floor, her neck arching up to hold the kiss because she was right, he is tall, so tall that even when she stands on her tiptoes like this her head barely reaches his chest. She reaches up under his shirt and feels the warmth of him, the strength and the steadiness of him, and thinks he has a strange quality to him that she can touch him like this and just feel his goodness, his compassion and his kindness. He is a good and solid and whole and in this instance, he is hers.

She feels intoxicated, almost drunk, as if they have tapped into some realm where there are no words, or logic, or sense. She is almost dizzy with the feeling, and breaks the kiss just for a moment. His eyes are blazing in an unfamiliar and thrilling way. She doesn't know what she would have expected—for him to be fumbling, maybe, or hesitant, or guilt-ridden. But he is none of those things, and for the first time, neither is she.

It is only a split second that they are apart before she presses both of her palms forcefully against his chest. He is too strong to be pushed but he lets her, stumbling back until he hits the mattress, grabbing her sides to drag her down with him. He is sitting, with her straddled on top of him, and before he leans down she fumbles for the hems of his t-shirt and all but tears it off of him.

She has seen Peter without a shirt hundreds of times. _Hundreds_. But this is the first time she has really let herself _look_, let herself feel the hunger and the yearning and appreciation for it. He is scarred and bruised but somehow magnificent to her, every inch of him, and she drags her fingertips down his chest, feeling the warmth and ripple of his skin under her touch.

"Like a bulldozer," she gasps into his face. He is bright and flush, staring at her with wide eyes. "You snore—like—a bulldozer."

He laughs, his head tilting back, and she lunges forward to kiss him again. She catches him by surprise and she feels his laughter echo into her throat. They fall back onto the mattress, shaking the frame, wrapping their arms around each other. She tilts her head to the side and kisses his neck, listening as a groan escapes from his throat.

"Jesus, Mary Jane," he says. There is nothing in the world more gratifying than the way he says her name, barely breathing it out, as if he has found something unbelievable and precious.

His hands are snaking down again, to the small of her back, to the elastic of her sweatpants. When he doesn't go any further than that she blurts, "I've wanted this for _so long_," and that's all the urging that he needs to start tugging them off. She shimmies out of them, and the whole motion of it is graceless and awkward but she is beyond the kind of self-awareness required of embarrassment. There are no longer any conscious thoughts leading her body, just primal instinct and the heat of him, the smell of him, the completeness of him that until now she has never even let herself fathom.

"I thought—I thought—" Peter stammers. "I thought you came back for Harry."

She lunges forward and kisses him again. _God_, there is no coming down from the high of it, no getting used to the way it feels, so breathtaking and new. "You're an idiot," she gasps.

He tosses the sweatpants somewhere across the room, where they land with a distant thud, somewhere in the world five feet beyond them that doesn't exist to her anymore. She grabs the flimsy straps of her tank top and pulls it up over her head. There is nothing between them now, just skin and bone and sweat and _want_. He reaches for her, draws her in and kisses her, aggressive and unafraid. When he touches her again she can't suppress the shudder of pleasure that overcomes her.

"Ever since you came back—that day when I saw you on the train," Peter says, his pressure of his fingertips electrifying against her bare arms.

"I remember," she breathes. How could she have forgotten the way that time stood still, the way everything in her universe came to a halt and instantly started revolving around him all over again?

"That day, that day on the platform, when I saw you, ever since then I—"

There is a flash of green and the unmistakable smash of glass breaking. MJ's eyes squeeze shut and she barely registers in the heat of the moment the _thud_ of her body against the unforgiving hardwood floor, the back of her head only slightly cushioned by Peter's hand. _The window_, she thinks, as she is wrenched out of her haze.

"Fuck," Peter exclaims. There is broken glass everywhere. The only reason it didn't slice her to pieces is that he must have rolled her off the bed just in time. "Are you okay?"

Her entire body is throbbing, but she can move. "Yeah, are you—"

Another flash of green. "Stay down," Peter barks. "Get under the bed."

"No," says MJ, because she has a terrible feeling about this. She has no doubt that it's the goblin impersonator, and very little doubt that this is a coincidence. This notion seems to occur to Peter as well. His expression is tight and almost foreign compared to the Peter he was only seconds before.

For a moment the two of them are frozen, staring at each other, in this ridiculous state of undress and panic. There is already so much adrenaline coursing in her veins, rushing in her ears, that there is no place else for it to go. She wonders if the impersonator knows Peter's identity. She wonders if it will be another second, or five seconds, or ten, before she sees a wicked face in the smashed window, before the impersonator tries to blow them to smithereens. Is this how it ends? She gets what she wants for the briefest, sweetest of moments, and then _dies_, with her knees on the hardwood floor, in a bra and underwear that don't even _match?_

She hears a scream somewhere from outside, but it isn't a panicked kind of scream, not the kind of scream she is used to hearing during an attack. It's a scream of pure and visceral rage. It can only be the new Goblin.

There's another explosion, farther from them than the first. She can see the struggle in Peter's posture, the torn look on his face, and she realizes that he is trying to figure out a way to leave her here. He doesn't know that she knows.

"Go," she says, motioning toward the window.

He stares at her in disbelief. "Mary Jane—I—"

"I'll be fine. You've got to get pictures, go," she says, as if this is a casual thing, sending an ordinary boy with his camera out to the streets to meet his demise.

He still hesitates, but only for the briefest of moments. Then, so quickly that she can hardly register the movements, he has grabbed his shoes and a backpack and thrown a shirt back on. Before he heads toward the door he looks back at her. She thinks for a second that he might lean in, might kiss her good-bye, but there is something too intimate and presumptuous about that, and they both know it.

"Be safe," she says, willing her voice not to crack.

He nods once, his expression dark and unreadable, and then the door shuts behind him.

Once the door is shut behind him the apartment seems unbearably dark and quiet. The wind is rushing through he broken window, the floor is splattered with glass. She should leave the apartment, but where can she go? Not outside, where there is clearly an attack going on. But how can she stay here, where she might as well have a target on her back? If the impersonator has any inkling of Peter's identity, or enough of one that he just deliberately targeted his apartment, then sitting here is another form of suicide.

She takes a few steps, braving the open space of the broken window, trying to get a look outside. The streets below her are empty. People must have already fled.

She hugs her arms to her chest. Her heart is still rattling in her ribcage, the nerves of her skin still pulsing in disbelief. _Did that really just happen?_

What she needs is to move. She can't just sit here. She roots around the room and collects her clothes, shaking the glass off of them and shoving them back on. She left a coat somewhere in the apartment, but she can't remember where, and she doesn't want to risk turning on a light and attracting any attention into the room.

Who can she call? Where can she go? She is finding herself in the same terrible position she was in two years before, with nobody to turn to. Gwen is gone. Peter is fighting. And May—well, MJ can't just run off to Queens in the middle of the night, can she? And she thinks Peter might be angrier at her showing up at her old apartment than he would be if she were running in the streets and yelling at the Goblin to hit her.

She stands at the doorway that leads into the hall, pressing a hand on her chest, her breath still heavy and stilted. At least she knows now. It's a morbid, horrible thought to have, but at least now she knows—if, god forbid, something happen to either of them tonight—she knows that he wants her. Maybe he isn't in love with her, maybe the events of tonight won't outlast the light of day, but this is enough, in a way, to know that she isn't crazy for feeling the way that she feels. There must have been a connection, some guiding force that kept pushing them together, or it wouldn't have been so effortless and _right_.

Eventually she slides to the ground and sits by the door, keeping some sort of vigil as she waits. He'll have to come back here, she thinks. And she'll be waiting when he does.

* * *

"Hey. Mary Jane."

She wakes up already mad at herself for falling asleep. Her neck is aching from sitting up against the door. She opens her eyes, cringing, and sees Peter standing over her in a hoodie and jeans.

"Are you okay?" she immediately asks, her voice thick.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine, I'm—I'm sorry I left you like that. Really, I—"

"No, don't be," she says. There is something too stilted about saying it like that. She wants to tell him that she understands, but it somehow feels too cryptic, like she would be giving away how much she knows. She tries to shrug, tries to look casual, like a man in green armor didn't just smash through his window and attack the city. "I told you to go."

"I shouldn't have. Gone, I mean. I didn't want to." Now that she has rubbed the sleep off her eyes she sees the anxiety in his face, the desperation to make things right. He crouches down to her level before she can manage to get back on her feet. "I'm glad you're alright."

As he grabs her hand to help her up she is able to give him more than her first cursory once-over, and sees that he seems to be, for once, relatively unharmed. When she's up on her feet his hand lingers on hers, and there's an unsure few seconds where she thinks he might embrace her. She almost leans in to initiate it, but something halts her, and she pulls her hand away and says, "So, got any good pictures?"

"What?" he asks. Even when she's helping him he's a terrible liar. "Oh. Uh. I guess, I'll see, I'll have to … look over the footage …" he mumbles.

"Well, what happened?" She crosses to the other side of the room, because she is suddenly uncomfortable standing so close to him, now that he has seen and knows so much that he didn't only hours before. She opens his closet and finds a broom and starts sweeping up the glass just to have something to do.

"Explosions. Chaos. His hoverboard broke at some point, and then it was over. Nobody got hurt this time," Peter says, and she catches a strange and almost suspicious quality in his voice, maybe because she is feeling that way, too.

"He didn't hurt anybody?" MJ asks, for confirmation.

Peter shakes his head. "I mean, besides going after Spiderman, no."

The two of them are quiet for a moment, MJ sweeping up the glass, Peter ostentatiously pulling out his camera and fiddling with it, probably only for her sake. As glad as she is to hear that there weren't any other casualties, the circumstances unnerve her. Of all the people in the city, Darien was murdered; of all the people in the city, Peter's window was smashed through; of all the people in the city, she seems to be the only one with a connection to both of the new Goblin's targets.

"Do you want to—talk about—what just happened?" Peter asks, and she can tell by the way he is holding his jaw that it is taking every bit of his focus not to deliver the words without mumbling or staring at his feet. She knows he isn't referring to the attack.

She finishes sweeping the last of the glass, but leaves it in the dustpan to look up at him. "Do you?" she asks. She doesn't mean for it to, but it comes out defensive and clipped.

"I mean, we don't have to," he says, and this time his eyes trail the floor like he's embarrassed.

She wants to take the few steps toward him, grab him by his overly-tall shoulders and shake him. If the both of them are always this self-conscious and unwilling to make the first move then they're never going to get anywhere. "Oh, for God's sake, Peter," she says, exasperated. "We're not fifteen, can we be adults about this?"

"So you _do_ want to talk about it."

"Okay. Yes." She stares at him, and sees that he is waiting for her, but she is completely at a loss. She can't even count the number of times she imagined what it would be like to be with Peter, to kiss him and touch him and feel the kind of recklessness and freedom that she just experienced with him, but those fantasies never extended beyond that. They never extended to the conversation wherein they acknowledge that she just almost slept with her dead best friend's fiancé.

"I …" she starts out. Her throat is impossibly dry, the single word cracking and hanging there uselessly. She has no idea what she meant to say anyway.

Peter is the one who crosses the distance between them. Peter, the one who has always been hesitant, and awkward, and meek. Wasn't she the strong one once? Didn't she used to be gutsy and brave? She remembers being the kind of girl who threw caution to the wind, who acted without thinking about the consequences.

And that's the problem, she sees. The consequences never mattered before, but what is happening right now, right here in this room, will inevitably affect the course of the rest of her life. Whether he was aware of it or not, Peter has always had the most unimaginable amount of power over her.

She clears her throat and tries again. "I—"

"We don't have to," says Peter, but his voice is gentler this time, and she feels his hands on her arms, bracing her. She startles, not expecting the gesture. She looks up at him and sees the tenderness in his eyes, the almost determined and solemn set of his brow. He looks like he has made up his mind about something, and when he holds her gaze and doesn't look away, she understands that it's her.

"I like you," she says. The words sound so childish. Peter exhales a breath of amusement, and she scrunches her eyes shut, mortified. "That's not—Peter, I—I don't know what I'm doing here," she says, barely able to string together these words that do absolutely no justice to the way she truly feels.

"Me neither," he admits. He leans in and so does she, pressing her forehead against his chest. He rests his chin on the top of her head and they stand there, not quite holding each other, listening to the sound of their mismatched breaths. "I just know that I want to be with you. If that's alright."

"Yeah," she says softly. There is still a feeling she can't name, something undefined and beautiful and sad. He wraps his arms around her and she feels so whole and perfectly contained in his embrace, but there it is, the feeling, the unshakeable and persistent feeling that she doesn't deserve this. That it doesn't truly belong to her. That he is holding her, stroking her hair, murmuring these sweet words and thinking of the girl he loved, the girl he lost.

She holds him tighter, willing the thought away. They are here now, just the two of them, their bodies pressed together so tightly that there isn't any room for the guilt, for the confusion, for the ever present and enduring ghost of Gwen that seems to linger in every room.

* * *

There is a service for Darien that the entire cast attends early in the afternoon. MJ stands in the back between her roommates, watching the proceedings, forcing herself to be in the present moment instead of thinking of the complexity of her last few days with Peter.

Darien has a huge family. There are two sisters and three brothers, two sets of grandparents, and a slew of aunts, uncles, and cousins. He must have been well-liked in high school, because there are dozens of young faces of people who must have flown into New York at the last minute just to be here for this. MJ feels an odd pang for this person she only barely knew, for the surface of him that she would never scratch. When his mother approaches MJ and introduces herself, MJ finds herself saying all these kind words about him, words that she never would have bothered to use when he was alive. His mother tears up and says, "You understand. He was a _good_ boy. He was always a good boy."

MJ nods. She thinks it may very well be true. But she never humored him long enough to see any other side of him.

There is an hour between the end of the service and an extra rehearsal scheduled for Brad, who is taking on Darien's part permanently. MJ ducks away from the rest of the cast, who are all sneaking into a bar to have a drink before the show, to toast to Darien. She would feel too conspicuous there. They all think that she and Darien were involved and she feels all their eyes on her, measuring her sadness, watching and waiting for her to break down.

She walks with a general purpose and direction toward the theater, because she has plenty of time to get there. It is a selfish relief to be away from everyone, away from Darien's family and his weeping mother. She wonders how long she would have to be dead for her father to even realize it, or if he would even come to her funeral if he knew. She wonders if he's even still alive. She decides yes, because she knows that May, at least, is keeping an eye out for him.

She wonders if anybody would even come to her funeral. It is one of those rare and cutting moments when she feels the sorriest for herself, when she lets herself dwell on the fact that she is not truly close to anyone, that she hasn't been since Gwen died. Harry is a stranger, and Peter, in his own way, has become one, too. The Peter from last night—she has never encountered him before. The regular rules to their interactions, the practiced and stilted flow of conversation—it no longer applies. She is every bit as bewildered by him as she was on the day she met him.

May would probably come though, and she would make Peter, even if he didn't want to. Some of the cast might come, at the very least Lexie and Lizzie because she lived with them. But she was determined to leave everything that reminded her of her years in high school in the dust, including any friends she made there. And all of her college friends moved away and got married and started families so she lost touch with them ages ago. She has been on her own for so long that she could disappear with very few people noticing. Someone would replace her in the show, someone would move into her old room, and life would go on. She has endured enough tragedy in her life to know that it always does.

She steps out on the curb, absorbed by her admittedly morbid thoughts, when she hears a blast. She anticipates the panicked screams on the street before they even start. She freezes for a moment, already standing in the crosswalk, watching people around her start to run.

She should run too, and she is about to, but she needs to see him. She needs to know that whatever this is, this impersonator, this copycat—she needs to know that it's real, and not some exaggeration in a newspaper or the paranoia of New Yorkers running amok. Her eyes trail the sky for just a split second before she hears the blare of a truck horn, and sees an out-of-control eighteen-wheeler headed straight for her.

There isn't any time to feel afraid, only enough time to feel _stupid_. That is the last thought she will ever have, is how stupid she is, for standing her and causing this horrible and irreversible thing to happen to herself. There is no way she will survive the impact. Her mouth and eyes are wide open as it sails toward her. She is going to die.

Everything else happens in less than the time it takes for her to gasp in a breath: she feels a pair of arms around her, feels the weightlessness of her feet leaving the ground, and knows that Spiderman has swooped in to grab her. She opens her eyes, about to blurt out a thank you, but then she feels her heart hitch in her chest.

Green. She is looking down at the arm that is around her waist, and all she sees is green.

Before she can scream she is deposited to the ground, safely out of the way of the truck and most of the screaming throng of people. She watches, dumbstruck, as an almost exact replica of the Green Goblin shoots back up into the sky. She clutches a hand to her chest, trying to make sense of it, trying to construct a coherent thought through the pulsing adrenaline that has left her weak in the knees.

It isn't just that he saved her. It's that she knows that touch, knows that _smell_, so musky and distinctive and familiar. As the green figure flies into the distance and shrinks into the sky, she mutters one word out loud, incomprehensible and damning: "_Harry_."

* * *

Guys. Guys. I moved into a new house that was way closer to downtown and whoo, isn't this awesome, I'm near all the music things and I'm saving gas money and I'm living in a place with functional internet and actually sleeping on a real mattress for the first time in six months, and then ... and then. I nestle in for my first night in my new place, open my eyes and see not two inches from my nose, a highly poisonous brown recluse spider, whose bite will not only hurt like a motherfucker, but will fester into giant gaping craters that are inches in diameter and disfigure your skin for life!

So obviously I killed the fuck out of it, over and over, and then told myself to relax. It was one spider. Just one. (Yes, I'm aware of the irony of the spider thing here, but it gets worse, bear with me). I calmed down and then resolved to go to bed again, and did a quick sweep of the room only to notice that I was definitely Not Alone. Two more spiders (not brown recluses, but still!), and a mosquito, and three little pill bugs, and a fly. But it's not the end of the world, right? So I gritted my teeth. Because I was not a sissy, god dammit, even if my room was a certifiable jungle.

Three seconds later I pull back the (brand new!) sheets to my (BRAND NEW!) mattress and find ... a worm. I shit you not. A fucking WORM. It was two thirty in the morning at this point, and it was the last straw. I screamed like a pansy, grabbed my phone and car keys and ran. Barefoot. No wallet. No money or license or anything. Just got in the car and drove, ten miles back into my old apartment, where I nestled on the empty floor of my old room wrapped in (yes, irony) my Spiderman blanket, praying for the light of day.

What I'm trying to say is, I haven't slept in forty-eight hours, so thank you, god bless you, you are my hero, to whoever out there reading this story, because you, friend, are the only thing on this planet that is keeping me from sticking my head in a blender.


	22. Chapter 22

**Perpendicular**

* * *

Her hands are shaking when she reaches for her phone to call Peter. "Pick up, pick up, pick up." Her voice is breathy and high-pitched, her palm sweating profusely as she presses the phone to her cheek. The individual rings seem to last forever. She hears another explosion off in the distance, feels her body stiffen with misplaced fear. He won't hurt her. Oh, God. Harry would never hurt her, and for some reason this is the worst part of all. "Pick _up_, pick up, pick up."

"You've reached the voice mail box of—"

"Fuck," MJ says tersely, resisting the urge to throw the phone into the brick wall in front of her. She dials in another number she knows by heart, because she needs to hear his voice, needs some solid evidence that what she just learned _isn't true_.

Five rings later she has never been more disappointed to hear Harry's voice: "You've reached Harry Osborn, I can't take your call right now, but—"

She clicks it off and walks, quickly, without looking up toward the sky. She doesn't want to look at him. She can't bear to look at him, not knowing the awful and inconceivable truth.

Maybe she is crazy. Maybe she imagined it—the smell of him, the sound of his breathing, the pressure of his arm around her waist. Fear is a disorienting emotion. She could just have easily been swept up and thought of something else, except Harry, with all of his cruel jabs and remarks, just happened to be on her mind.

Or Harry could be the new Green Goblin.

Her entire body is wracked with such pulsing panic that she thinks she might be sick. She keeps walking, pointing her eyes straight ahead, keeping her face as blank as a stone. He's watching her. He must be watching her, even from this distance, way up on his perch in the sky. She can _feel_ his eyes on her. If she turns this corner, if she walks into this bookstore, if she breaks out into a run—he'll know.

It is all she can do to focus on putting one foot in front of the other. She grips her cell phone, hard, as if the force can will Peter to return her call.

He saved her. The new Goblin swept her up off the street and saved her life. If it isn't Harry, then who could it possibly be? Or is this new madman so unpredictable that he wreaks havoc with a conscience? Why on earth would he choose _MJ_, of all people, to—

She stops dead in her tracks. _Darien_. She feels her lips moving, mouthing his name. Oh, god. She is remembering in excruciating detail that morning with Harry in the kitchen, the tightness of his jaw, the bitter curve of his lip. The sweet soprano of Lexie's teasing voice: _Jane and Darien, sitting in a tree—_

"Jesus," MJ mutters. She reaches out to the cold cement of the building in front of her to support herself. She is gasping, breaking out into cold sweat, her stomach roiling as she finally understands that all of this is her fault.

Peter was right. She should never have come back here. She should have left the moment he told her to. If she had just listened, if she had just been sensible instead of letting herself get caught up in the show, caught up in her new life, caught up in anything and everything that would put her an inch closer into Peter Parker's world, then none of this would have happened. Darien wouldn't be _dead_.

It's hard to breathe. She feels her head swarm as she forces herself to keep moving, her lungs practically tearing with the effort to support herself. Harry is a murderer. _Her_ Harry. Sweet, handsome Harry, who used to carry her from the couch to their bed when she fell asleep, who left little notes in her audition bag telling her to break a leg, who cried when he told MJ about the day his mother died.

She did this to him. It is all her fault. She neglected him for months before she abandoned him, she never noticed the drugs or the shifts in his behavior, didn't notice even when he was standing right in front of her in the kitchen with murder on his mind. And now her ignorance has created a monster.

The phone lights up and she sees it out of the corner of her eye, barely registering it. The tremors in her hands are so heavy that she can't even feel the phone vibrating. It takes several attempts to swipe her thumb on the screen to answer the call. "Dammit," she mutters, when it doesn't work the first time. "Come _on_—"

It swipes open to answer the call. "Peter," she says, breathless.

"What's wrong?"

"It's—it's—the new Goblin," she manages, looking up at the sky, paranoid that he is still near, that he can somehow hear her.

Peter's voice cuts through her panic: "Is he out there? Where are you?"

She shakes her head, trying to find the words to answer him. "I'm—near the theater," she manages. "He's out here. But Peter—"

"Mary Jane, you need to hang up the phone and _get inside_—"

"Wait," she says. She stops on the sidewalk again, because it is too overwhelming, somehow, to keep moving when she tells him this. She sucks in a painful breath, shuts her eyes and can barely comprehend the words that spill out of her: "It's Harry. Harry is the impersonator, I just—I know it sounds crazy, but I think it's true."

There is a weighted pause on Peter's end. Her heart is hammering in her throat, her skin tingling with unease. He doesn't believe her. He's going to tell her that she's crazy. He's going to use that voice that she heard him use that one time she got drunk at that gala—all purposeful and calming, because he knows better, because he is in control.

She isn't expecting him to say what he says next: "I know."

The words are solemn and unforgiving. She has no time to appreciate the trust he is putting in her by admitting this, no time to appreciate the magnitude of what he has done by finally letting her in. All she feels is bone chilling, heart gripping _fear_.

"What—what—" The words are clumsy, her thoughts racing themselves and tripping over each other. "What are we supposed to _do?_"

"Go to the theater. Stay inside. I'll meet you there as soon as I can."

He's going off to fight Harry. She knows by the determined edge in his voice that that is what he'll do the moment she hangs up, and she is almost reluctant to let him go. How long has he known? She remembers the night in her apartment, how the boys were at each other's throats, how Peter almost inconceivably could never get the upper hand on a fight he should have been able to win in seconds.

Harry has had these warped abilities for weeks. At _least_.

And MJ has been practically living with him the entire time.

"Peter—"

It's too quiet on his end. She pulls the phone away from her ear and it's blank. He has already hung up.

* * *

"Jane."

In her sophomore year of high school a bunch of their classmates went out and got drunk at some party Flash was throwing. MJ was going to go, and she can't remember the specific reason why she didn't, but she knows it had something to do with her father. In any case, the next Monday there was a mandatory assembly in the cafeteria first thing in the morning that the entire student body attended. MJ remembers passing a lot of tight-lipped, white-faced people in the halls on the way there, and before she could even talk to anybody she knew that someone had died over the weekend, someone from their school.

She was right. It turned out to be some girl named Melanie, a girl that MJ recognized but never really spoke to or had any classes with. Some of the kids had piled into an upperclassmen's car after the party and ended up getting into a wreck on the New Jersey turnpike. The driver was drunk, but it was Melanie, sitting in the passenger seat, who flew out of the windshield and died on impact.

"Jane?"

MJ wasn't really paying attention at the assembly. She had just realized that she had a history paper due in her third period that she hadn't started and she was trying to think of some way to either throw something together or effectively fake an illness. It wasn't that she didn't understand the horror of what had just happened—it was just that it didn't concern her, it wasn't any of her business, and as for the scare tactics they used in the assembly about the dangers of drinking—well, MJ already had an unshaven, disgusting 250 pound scare tactic wedged between the couch cushions at home.

For weeks she hardly ever thought about it. And then one day she was standing by her locker and heard a two girls whispering loudly a few lockers down.

"That's her. That's the girl who was driving the car."

"I heard Melanie's parents are suing her."

"Apparently she was going ninety miles an hour. _Ninety_."

MJ slammed her locker door shut, loudly, and it jolted the two girls enough to stop talking. The warning bell rang and everyone started scurrying toward their classrooms, but not fast enough for MJ to miss her: the girl, whose name MJ never knew, who was walking down the hallway with her gaze on the floor. Her eyes were deep-set like bruises, her skin sallow, her arms clutched around her books as if they were vital organs she was holding in.

The sight of it took MJ's breath away. How inhuman she seemed, how haunted, how she walked as if she was carrying the most unbearable of burdens. The pain was so raw on her face that MJ could feel it just by looking at her. And then, just when MJ thought she had never seen something more heart-wrenching in her entire life, the girl's eyes swept up from the floor and locked on MJ.

"_Jane_."

"What," MJ mutters. She blinks. Brad's face is not two inches from hers, scowling and inquisitive.

"We need to run the chase scene again. The director's been asking for you on stage for like five minutes."

"Oh."

She walks behind him, through the space underneath the stage, and feels like she is in that high school hallway again. Only this time she isn't the one staring from afar. This time she's the murderer.

* * *

When the rehearsal lets out, there are six missed calls on her phone. One is from Peter. The other five are from Harry.

"You called me. Is everything alright? Call me back," is all the first voicemail says.

She doesn't listen to the other voicemails. There is something profoundly unsettling about how casual he sounds on the phone. She could close her eyes and easily imagine that it's Harry from two years ago. She could close her eyes and easily imagine that he wasn't capable of killing an innocent man.

She pulls out her phone to call Peter, to make sure he's alright. She just finishes dialing the number when she exits the theater out of the back, and runs smack into Harry.

"Mary Jane," he says, his face so open and earnest that she thinks he might have actually forgotten the horrible, biting things he said to her just the day before. "I got your call. I just—I called you back, you didn't pick up."

She stands there, the phone still ringing in her hands. She should feel more afraid, but this is Harry. It's just Harry. He's just a boy standing in front of her, wearing the loafers she helped him pick out a few years ago, with the same stubborn cowlick sticking up on the back of his head. She can't force her brain to make the connection between him and the horrible things he has done, and maybe in this particular instance, it's for the best. She doesn't want him to be able to sense any of her fear.

"So you decided to wait for me at the stage door," she says, the words clipped.

"Yeah. Well." He takes a step back. "I figured if you were calling me, it was important. Since we haven't been talking much these days."

"I didn't mean to call you," she says, hitching her bag up higher on her shoulder and walking down the street. "It was an accident."

"Are you sure?" He blocks her path, stepping in her way.

She juts her chin at him, feeling the skin of her arms prick uncomfortably. "Move, Harry."

He relents, moving just barely enough for her to keep walking. "If something's wrong, Mary Jane, you can talk to me. I'm here for you."

"That's—nice of you to say," she says through her teeth, "but really, I'm—"

"Listen. I know that call wasn't an accident." He's deliberately blocking her path again, and they're on one of those unpopulated streets full of construction, the one she has to take to get home. A busier street is within sight and she squares her shoulders, determined to get to it, but Harry grabs her by the shoulders and says, "I know you don't want to admit it, but you needed me, and I—"

"Don't _touch me!_"

She doesn't mean to scream, doesn't mean to jerk her body away from him with such a dramatic and wrenching shudder, but she can't help it. The idea of his hands on her instills the kind of terror and repulsion she can't hide. She shrinks back, clutching her arms to herself, wondering if it's too late to recover from this; if it's possible for her shake the tension off and pretend everything is normal just long enough to _get to the damn street. _

She looks up at him tentatively. His expression is hard and ugly. "I just want to be here for you, Mary Jane." The sentiment behind the words is eerily incongruous with his tone. "I can protect you. I can keep you safe."

He's throwing those words in her face. He knows exactly the effect they'll have, or at least the effect they once would have. There is a glint in his eye, reminding her that he knows every unhappy truth about her, all the lingering insecurity and scars of her childhood that led her out of Queens, led her straight to him. The safe one. The kind, easygoing, _safe_ one, who is now staring at her with eyes so cold she barely recognizes him.

"From what?" she answers coolly.

"Everything," he says, losing some of the hardness. He has mistaken her tone and thinks she is being sincere. "You have no idea what kind of world we live in. How _dangerous_ it really is."

She is all too aware of where the danger is. She clutches her phone in her hand. She wonders if Peter picked up or if it went straight to voicemail. She wants to check but she doesn't want Harry to know that she's talking to Peter and make him any angrier, and she would just hang up but with her uneasiness growing with every step of hers that he cuts off, she decides to leave it on, on the off chance that Peter can hear Harry's voice in the background and figure out what's going on.

"If you think Peter can protect you, you're wrong."

She looks up at him in astonishment. It's as if she said her thoughts out loud. But he continues, "Peter isn't who you think he is, Mary Jane. There's so much he's hiding from you. It's unforgivable."

"And you're not hiding anything?" She shouldn't have asked, but she needs to keep him talking, just long enough to get to a more crowded area.

"No," he says. His lips tighten and his eyes flick to the ground. "Or at least—no, Mary Jane, I would never lie to you, not like he does." As she quickens her pace, the clacks between her heels on the ground becoming louder and faster, he raises his voice and gets more visibly frustrated with her: "Just—say you'll come with me, and I'll tell you everything."

She shakes her head, her gaze focused straight ahead. "I've got somewhere to be."

He grabs her wrist and she wrenches it away, barely suppressing another scream. Before she can tell him off he says, "If you knew what I had to say, you'd come with me right now. _I'm_ the one who won't lie to you. _I'm_ the one who will keep you safe, and treat you like an _equal_. The way you deserve."

"Stop it, Harry." His eyes are wild, too wide and too frantic. It seems to her like he is barely breathing, as if he is trying to convince her all in one desperate, hopeless gasp. "Please. I don't want to have this conversation again."

"If you knew the truth about Peter Parker—"

"I know enough."

Harry laughs, low and throaty and cruel. "You think you know everything, huh?" He walks just a half-step ahead of her, unnervingly close. "You think _Parker_ can keep you safe? Just look what happened to Gwen."

MJ knows he is trying to rattle her, trying to stop her in her tracks. She refuses to let him.

"Or that guy from your show. You know," he says. "That loser you were sleeping with. _Darien_."

The resulting wave of guilt is just as crushing as the first. She grits her teeth and walks through it.

"I don't know what you saw in that waste of space, Mary Jane. But good riddance."

The fury is white-hot and blinding. "You son of a bitch," she snaps, raising her hand on instinct. In truth she isn't really going to hit him, she's not stupid enough to try that, but he grabs her wrist anyway and holds it there so hard that she can't stop the gasp of pain that escapes her.

"Let go," she breathes.

He is staring at her wrist in his hand, transfixed, like he has set a trap and is surprised to find an animal there. "So fragile," he says. "I could snap you in half so easily."

She shuts her eyes for the briefest of moments, her eyelids slick with sweat and fear. He's going to kill her. How could she be so stupid? How could she think that he would spare her, when he had already lost enough of his humanity to kill a man?

"Harry, please." She hears herself pleading. It's pathetic. But _god_, she doesn't want to die. Not right now, not like this—for the first time in a long time she has found something to _live_ for, and while she has faced her own demise too many times for her to comfortably count, this is the first time that she has really and truly felt the desperation and fear that comes with it. "Please."

His eyes snap away from their hands. He stares at her, and for a moment his expression is so warm and apologetic that she almost feels relief. "Come here," he says. He draws her body close to his and she is too scared to object, letting him put his arms around her, feeling her throat tighten with terror. She hates the sensation of his hands on her. It is an innocuous touch, it is the kind of embrace they've had a thousand times, but she feels so vile for letting him do it that it makes her sick.

He pulls back a strand of her hair and whispers into her ear, "I would never hurt you, Mary Jane."

When she shuts her eyes she feels a tear leak down her cheek. He doesn't seem to notice.

"Come with me," he says again.

She wishes Peter were here. It's an absurd thought to have. He isn't her personal savior, he has an entire city to look after. But when she opens her eyes it is all she is hoping for, all that she has left.

"Don't you feel it?" Harry says, still holding her close. "What we had together, it's still there, Mary Jane. It never went away." He strokes her back with his fingers and her whole body tingles with revulsion. "How can you feel this and say you don't love me anymore?"

She draws in a shuddering breath. She thinks of Darien, of the college graduation picture they had blown up at his funeral, of his weeping mother, of the big wooden casket in the church. She thinks of the unendurable nights of Harry just one thin wall away, watching her every move with guarded eyes. She thinks of the floor of a living room in Queens, filled with half-empty beer bottles, and thinks of watching a bunch of little pills whirlpool down the drain.

"I—could _never_ love you."

He pushes her back with unimaginable force, straight into a brick wall. The impact knocks the air out of her and she clutches her chest, wheezing, her head splitting with pain where it hit with an angry thud. _"Harry_," she gasps.

"God _dammit_," he says. "I'm sorry—I didn't mean to—"

He tries to touch her again, tries to help her up, but she shakes her head. It takes her forever to find air again, and when she does it feels like her lungs are ripping in her chest: "Somebody _help!_" she screams. It's barely audible, she can't recover enough to make herself heard and there is nobody on the street. "_Help—_"

Her body is thrust back at the wall again, a hand slapped over her mouth. "Stop," Harry hisses, his eyes wide. "I didn't mean it. I'm sorry."

She can't breathe. Doesn't he realize that she can't _breathe?_ She struggles and tries to open her mouth to bite at his hand, but he anticipates this and her jaw won't even budge under his hold. Her phone slips out of her hands and clatters to the sidewalk. His face is inches from hers, pleading, asking her to stop. It would be smarter not to struggle, it would be safer to just let him say whatever he is trying to say to her, but she needs air. She needs it so badly that her entire body is seizing with the effort to get it, and she can't think of anything else.

"Mary Jane, I'm sorry, I swear," Harry says, misinterpreting the struggle, thinking she is trying to attack him. She should. She should kick him, or hit him with her free hand, but when she tries it bats against him uselessly. Every fiber of her being is screaming for oxygen and she feels herself fading, feels her muscles slackening and her eyes sliding shut.

"Mary Jane—_shit_."

He releases her and her lungs swell with the effort to suck in a breath as her knees hit the pavement. The air never comes, or if it does she doesn't appreciate it. Her vision swarms and she knows that as the rest of her body hits the ground it should probably hurt, but all she feels is a jolt and the sound of Harry saying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm _sorry_."

* * *

Before she opens her eyes, all she is capable of registering is a splitting pain in her head, radiating through the bone of her skull. It's the kind of pain that makes her want to lull back into darkness, but something isn't right—something about the posture of her body, about the cool surface against her back. Did Harry _leave_ her on the cement? Her first instinct is to touch the back of her head, which she is sure is bruised, if not bleeding, but her arm won't move.

"It's alright, Mary Jane. I'm here."

She hears Harry's voice and her eyes shoot open. The intensity of the light in the room is devastating. She can barely make out his blurry form, and as he comes into focus she feels the world around her sway. She is face to face with him, and he is standing. Her brain struggles to make sense of the arrangement, and then sluggishly, painfully, she realizes that she is propped upright against something.

"What …" Her throat is so dry, her thoughts so muddled.

"Shh, shh," he says, taking a step closer to her. "I know it hurts. But you'll feel a lot better soon."

"Harry," she croaks. She tries to move her arms again, tries to use them to propel herself up and off of this platform, but they don't budge. She tries again, feeling white hot panic course through her. She is paralyzed. She is sure of it.

Harry reaches forward and puts a gentle hand on her arm. There is nothing she can do to stop him. "I'm sorry," he says, his voice soft, doing nothing to soothe her terror. "The restraints were a necessary precaution."

This feels like a nightmare. She shuts her eyes and waits to wake up, but she is still here, in this unfamiliar, white-walled place, with the steady whirr and hum of machinery behind her. "For what?" she manages.

"What you don't know," says Harry, his hand still warm against the skin of her upper arm, "is that my father was a hero."

MJ is hearing him without listening. She manages to look to her left, away from him, and in her periphery she can see that her wrist is strapped down by a fitted metal cuff. She tries to remain calm, but when her eyes adjust to the brightness she sees that there is a thick needle plunged into her arm, and some sort of green liquid in the tube attached to it.

"What are you doing to me?" she cries out.

Harry is so patient, now that she can't fight back. "Let me explain, Mary Jane." He finally lifts his hand off of her and takes a step back, staring at her and whatever she is strapped into. He walks even further and stands behind some sort of console with controls on it. She waits in the excruciating silence for him to speak again, to make some sense of this. Has he brought her here to torture her? Is he trying to lure Peter here by holding her hostage? What the _hell_ could Harry possibly be injecting her with, that he can look so calm while he does it?

"I knew you were fragile, Mary Jane, but I forgot just how fragile until today. I didn't mean to hurt you. I guess I don't know my own strength anymore." He says this with a vague, almost self-satisfied kind of smile, but it falls off of his face before he speaks again. "I would never hurt you. That's why I have to do this. For your own safety."

Nothing he is saying explains what is happening to her, why she is strapped in like a science experiment. The ache in her head only worsens as her frustration grows. She wants to scream at him, but she doesn't have the energy, has barely anything left in her at all.

"Harry—"

"My father," he says, loudly, intentionally interrupting her, "created this machine. It's revolutionary, really. The combination of his super serum and the electric current create superhuman abilities. Can you imagine that, Mary Jane? Waking up and being able to outrun Olympians—to lift cars and leap across buildings?"

The gears in her head are turning so slowly, but there is a thought she is struggling to make sense of, something about his words that scare her without quite knowing why. "You father …"

"After Spiderman murdered him, I found his old notes. They led me here, beneath OsCorp, to the technology he created." Harry strokes the console with his thumb, admiring it. "He left it all here. He left it for _me_. I know he meant for me to find it, to carry on the legacy that he was robbed of before his time."

MJ can't look at him. She tries to focus on a spot on the wall, but it is all pristine and flawless and white.

The words hurt for her to say. Her chest is still aching from before, and she barely manages to wheeze, "Your father … was the original Green Goblin."

"My _father_," says Harry, recognizing the disgust in her voice, "was a _hero_."

"A murderer," MJ corrects him, too vehemently for her body to handle. She coughs, and the impact of it wracks her entire body, straining the muscles held back by the restraints. There isn't a single part of her body that isn't screaming in protest.

"You're wrong." Harry is standing a few feet away, but she can still see his fingers curling into angry fists, his composure starting to crumble. "_Spiderman_ killed all those people, and blamed it on my father. My father spent _years_ trying to save our city from that bastard—"

"God, Harry—_no_, that's not —"

"_Listen_ to me," Harry cuts her off, "because you don't _know_, Mary Jane, you have no idea what Spiderman has done, what he has hidden from this whole city, what he's hidden from _you_."

She forces herself to breathe. Breathe in, breathe out. It does nothing to distract from the pain, or from the terror of her realization: Harry knows. Harry knows Peter is Spiderman, and Harry knows that Peter would never try to hurt him. As long as the two of them are fighting, Harry will always, always, _always_ have the upper hand.

"I know you're the new Goblin, Harry."

His posture tightens and he stares at her directly, almost daring her to say more. "That's right," he says. He is so self-important, so proud. It is profoundly unsettling, just how truly he believes that he is in the right. "Someone has to stop him, Mary Jane. Enough is enough."

She can't argue with him. He is past the point of rationality, past the point where can try to bring him back. There is nothing she can say or do that will change his mind.

"Harry," she says instead, trying to keep her voice even and level. "Why am I strapped into this machine?"

"Isn't it obvious?" he asks.

She gnaws on her lower lip so hard that she can taste blood. She knows, but she doesn't want to; she waits for him to say it, hoping it isn't true.

"I'm going to make you invincible," he says. He is smiling at her. She thinks this is a sight she will never unsee, the terrifying curve of that smile on his face, the mad and happy gleam in his eyes. "You'll be as strong as I am, and then we can be together again."

"No." She pushes against the restraints again, but it is so useless that for all her efforts she doesn't even make a sound. She is locked in so tight that she can differentiate between the metal and her own skin. "_No_. I don't want this, Harry, _don't_."

He looks at her like she is a child, like she is the one too irrational to understand. "Mary Jane. I would do _anything_ for you. You know that, right? You have to trust me."

"No." She can hear the blood rushing in her ears louder than a siren. She watches his fingers start to fly across the console with a numb, dissociative kind of horror. She struggles again, because even though it hurts it is less maddening than laying here and doing nothing at all. "_No_," she cries again, and when he doesn't even look up, she throws the only words at him that she thinks might get his attention: "Harry, this machine, it's going to _kill_ me."

Harry almost looks insulted. "I would never risk your life on uncertainties. As long as the serum is being released at a steady rate, the electric current won't harm you. I'm initiating the serum now."

"_No_—"

The whirr of the machine starting up interrupts her. She tosses her head back and forth, trying to see what is happening, but there is nothing in her field of vision but white walls and her limbs strapped to metal. The serum plunges into her veins and she feels her skin growing ice cold, feels her body seizing in response to the drug.

She tries to scream but nothing comes out of her. It feels like her throat is frozen shut. She has one last heartbreaking and coherent thought on her mind: _Peter_. All the things she never told him, all the love that she wasted. Will she come out of this alive? If she does, will she be every bit as imbalanced as Harry? She can't decide which is worse, but she knows that either way, she will lose something today. The possibility of a future with Peter is gone.

She has no idea which of the buttons initiates the machine, but she can sense the moment right before Harry hits it, because he suddenly pauses his hand.

"Mary Jane," he says.

She doesn't mean to look at him. He is so determined, so passionate. For a fleeting moment she almost recognizes the boy she met at the hotel all those lifetimes ago.

"I love you."

She sucks in a breath as he flips a switch. Her body roils and burns until she feels nothing, sees nothing, hears nothing but the sound of her own screams, echoing in her ears.

* * *

I know, I know. There wasn't any sexytimes in this chapter. But it's like. There had to be plot somewhere. I promise Peter will return!

Thank you all for your support in these bug-infested times of mine. My landlords set off bug bombs and since then my life and times has drastically improved. We have a porch at the new place, so now we do this thing every night where we sit and drink sweet tea or beer and watch fireflies and listen to music. It feels like I'm living in a music video, or at least that's how it feels until I realize there's so much liquid inside of me that I always need to pee.

Also I had a bunch of drunk people sing along to one of my songs at a gig! I'm drunk people famous!


	23. Chapter 23

**Perpendicular**

* * *

All she wants is for it to be over. She shuts her eyes as tight as she can hold them, determined not to see, as if she can will everything away. The electric current pierces through her body and he pain is so intense that she can't even recognize it anymore—she feels bodiless, like there is nothing left to her but thoughts and empty space. Tears spring into her eyes but they bring no relief. There is no relief from this, no comforting thought she can think, nothing but the hiss and scream of the machinery and sickening feeling of the serum, thick and freezing as it swells through her veins.

It feels like her skin is on fire, like her heart is going to explode out of her chest. She wonders what is going to happen to her, and she wonders for too long. It's the waiting that is the most unbearable. It should be over by now, shouldn't it? She should be dead. She is so far gone that she almost hopes for it. She wants this to _end. _She is so desperate for release that she doesn't care how—let her die, let her die, just let it be over, please, _god_, please.

The rest of her fights to stay alive even as she is pleading for an end. She thinks of Peter and her toes curl against the cool metal and for just one brief second there is clarity, for one brief second she feels brave. But then another surge of electricity rips through her, shattering every coherent thought she has left.

Her eyes fly open, and all she sees is black.

"I can't—I _can't_—"

The words choke out of her and that is her first indication that the pain has reached some sort of plateau. It isn't getting any better, but it isn't getting any worse, and her wits are catching up with her just enough to process some of what is happening to her. She can't decide if this consciousness is worth excruciating awareness of her own pain, of the irreversible shock to her body.

Another wave crashes over her and it is unfathomable. She isn't anticipating it—how could _anybody, ever anticipate this?_—and she hears the words tumbling out of her mouth, senseless and demoralizing: "_Please, _please, _please please please_—"

"I'm sorry, Mary Jane." His voice is close, closer than she thought it would be. Is he at the console still? Why has he come over here—to be closer to her while he watches her die? "It'll all be worth it. I swear to you, it will."

She tries to scream at him, something biting and cruel, anything in the world that might make him feel a fraction of the agony that she is enduring right now, but all that comes out is a moan, pitiful and low. She is powerless. She is alone. It is an inconceivable version of the very fears and insecurities that have plagued her ever since she could remember. She hates that he is watching this. She hates that _anybody_ is able to see her this weak, this pathetic, this _useless_.

As the worst wave starts to subside just slightly, something in her consciousness snaps. She is angry. She is _furious_. And that is the only real relief she feels since Harry flipped the switch. Her rage is something palpable, something almost tangible that she can cling to in these desperate moments; it keeps her alive. It keeps her heart beating and her blood flowing, pushing through the ache of the serum coursing through her veins. She hates him. She will make him pay.

"That's it," she hears him say. His voice is comforting, soothing even, but it sounds like poison dripping in her ears. "That's it, it's almost over."

The pain doesn't lessen, but she starts to regain some of her senses, little by little: the blurry image of Harry, still at the console; the sound of his voice suddenly magnified, as if he really is mere inches away; and then suddenly everything in the room becomes brighter, sharper, more acute and defined that anything she has ever seen before. Every miniscule mark on the too-white walls, every circuit exposed on the console, every pore on Harry's face.

She expects her body to sag in exhaustion as she gains this terrifying focus, but instead she stiffens, her muscles rigid and poised without her even realizing it. The machine is still pulsing its current into her as steadily as it did from the start. It isn't over, but somehow she is alive, somehow she is _more_ than alive. It doesn't matter that she can't breathe. She doesn't need to. She flexes her fingers and her toes again, and feels an impossible strength in them.

"Oh, god," she gasps, because maybe it worked. Maybe Harry really does know enough about this machinery to transform her. Maybe she is some sort of subhuman experiment now, just like him—just like _Peter_.

Her face contorts in anguish. Peter. How could he love her after this? How could anybody?

She will make Harry suffer for doing this to her. It is surprising how intensely she feels this notion, how compelled she is to find some way to make him feel her pain, feel her emptiness and her guilt. Everything he has inflicted on her she suddenly wants him to feel tenfold. She wants him gone, she wants him finished and out of their lives forever.

She looks up at Harry, and her gaze is so resigned and severe that he is incapable of holding it.

"Hold on," he says. There is something clipped in the words, and that is how she knows the worst is yet to come. "Just—hold on."

His hand reaches for another switch.

"_No_," she screams, and this time when she struggles with the restraints she swears she feels the slightest give to them, like she could really snap them off if she tried, but it doesn't matter anymore: the current that roars through her is paralyzing and unlike any of the previous ones. She is brutally aware of its effect on her, feeling the pain shred through every fiber of her new being. There is no mercy of confusion or shock to lessen the blow. Her eyes are wide open, her nerves are screaming, and every single fear or hope or desire she has ever had is muted by one dark, single thought: she is going to get out of here, and then she is going to find a way to make him _hurt_.

As she stares him down Harry focuses his eyes intensely on the console, until suddenly they dart away, looking sharply to the left. MJ follows his gaze but can't see far enough to know what he is looking at. It only becomes clear when she hears a heart-stoppingly familiar voice yell, "What are you _doing_ to her?"

Before Peter even finishes the sentence, Harry snaps, "You're too late."

She has never heard this much venom in his voice before. "Like _hell_ I am," he practically snarls, and she hears his footsteps rushing toward her and every one of her limbs is poised and begging for him to find some way to stop this, to find some way to make it end.

Harry's words boom over the scream of the machinery. "If you interrupt the process now, I guarantee you, she will die."

"You're _lying_."

"I wouldn't test that theory if I were you."

Red and blue swarms across her vision, and she sees Spiderman standing in front of her, obviously hesitating. It's strange, but somehow she didn't expect to see him in his uniform. The voice she heard when he busted into the room was so decidedly Peter Parker that her brain is having trouble reconciling the fact that he is masked in front of her now.

He's staring at her, stiff, frozen by Harry's warning. She wonders if it's true. If it will kill her to stop the machine. She can see Peter wondering the same thing, and she chokes out, "It's okay, it's okay," even though it's not, even though one more second of this might break her, because she doesn't want him to carry the guilt for this the way he carries the guilt for everything else. It's enough that he's here.

"No," says Peter. He rounds on Harry so quickly, quicker than MJ should be able to perceive, but now that her senses are so sharp she can see every ripple of the movement as Peter practically flies over to the console, jerks his elbow back and punches Harry across the face with a thud that is lost over the whir of the machine. "You stop this. You're _hurting her_, you stop this or I swear to god, Osborn—"

Harry's laughing. "What?" he asks. "You'll _kill_ me?"

Peter knocks Harry out of the way, exclaiming with a primal and gut-wrenching rage in an effort to get his hands on the console. As soon as Harry hits the ground he starts fiddling with switches, glancing up at her anxiously, but nothing happens. MJ bites the inside of her cheek until she tastes blood, willing herself not to scream. She doesn't want to scare him. But every second that this goes on is more unbearable than the last.

"Don't," she hears Harry say. She shouldn't be able to hear him, but every word is razor sharp and clear. "Don't touch that, you don't know what you're doing—"

Peter ignores him until Harry swings up his fist. Peter lifts a hand up and catches it, then twists Harry's wrist around with such sickening precision that Harry yelps in surprise. Peter hits another switch and then, with a few shuddering, protesting gasps, the noise of the machine starts to fade.

Peter's heard snaps up from the console. "Mary Jane—"

Before he can so much as take one step forward Harry is on his feet again, shoving Peter with enough force that he goes sailing across the room. Peter leaps up as quickly as he hits the ground and the two of them meet each other halfway, blocking and throwing blows—Harry is strong and Peter is _fast_, but it doesn't seem to matter. Even in the ten seconds she is watching it is clear that the two of them are evenly matched.

The machine finally quiets down and MJ gasps, her body seizing in the restraints, waiting for the pain to start fading away. She feels the previous, short-lived strength draining from her body, and the sounds and sights become muddled again, until they're ordinary and mundane and human. Her entire body has broken out into cold sweat. She looks away from the two of them fighting, testing the restraints; they're as tight as ever.

She hears Harry cry out and looks up at the sound, just in time to see him flying toward the console. It smashes at the impact and MJ immediately hears the machine start to whirr.

"Hey," she yells, but she is quickly overpowered by the sound of the machine starting back up again. The two of them are still fighting, so intensely engaged that they haven't noticed her, haven't noticed the machine coming back to life. She needs to get their attention. Nothing in the world is worth enduring this again. "_Hey!_" she screams, feeling a fresh, hot pulse of panic in her throat like bile. She can't think of anything more coherent to say, but it doesn't matter anyway, they can't hear her. All she can do is brace herself.

When the current hits again it is unfathomable in its force, but the pain is so intense that she feels her body start to numb to it. She remembers a paramedic explaining this to her once, when her father drunkenly fell down the stairs and broke his ankle so terribly she saw bone sticking out. She asked why he was just sitting there, why he wasn't crying, and someone in the chaos had swept down for just long enough to say, _He's in shock, sweetheart. He isn't really even processing the pain_. She stood there in the ambulance with them because she had no place else to go and spent hours in the waiting room, picturing the blank, glassy look on her father's face, remembering the vacant tone in his voice when he called her down to the bottom of the stairs and told her to bring the phone.

She won't let it happen to her. She won't submit to his, not the way he did. She won't die comfortably numb in this miniature prison.

"Harry," she shouts, because he knows what the console is doing, because he surely won't this kill her after all the measures he has taken to bring her here. "Harry!"

If she thinks the sound of her screaming his name will stir him, she is wrong. They're clear on the other side of the room now, and in the same instant that Harry has Peter in a chokehold, Peter shimmies out from under him and lands several quick and calculated jabs that make Harry double over. This is ridiculous, she thinks to herself, that the two of them are willing to maim each other over her and that this machine just might well _kill_ her while they're doing it.

"Harry," she tries again, but her voice is weak now, and so far away that she feels like it is leaving her body. Everything is starting to fade, to numb its way out of reality. The hum of the machine isn't nearly as aggravating. The piercing in her skin is now just a tingle, and she can't feel her fingers and toes, can't feel much of anything at all.

She opens her mouth to call out again and when she sucks in the breath there is some resignation to it—she is struggling too much. Somehow she knows that this breath will be her last. She has to make it count.

When she looks out at them she is so far gone that she isn't really understanding the magnitude of her last cry, barely above a whisper: "_Peter_."

The effect is instantaneous. Peter snaps his eyes on her so quickly, with such palpable shock, that even Harry stops delivering blows to follow his gaze. She can't make another sound. The world around her is warm and closing in, until there is nothing but the steady stare of those white, empty lenses in the split second before Peter tears off running toward her.

The current. It's too strong. She knows this even without command of the rest of her thoughts, but there is no way to warn him. For the brief few moments it takes for Peter reach her, she feels as if time has slowed to a crawl—the current is too strong, and she has no voice to tell him, no energy left that she can summon. She tries to call out a warning but her lips mouth his name without a sound: _Peter, Peter, PETER—_

The moment Peter's hands get a grasp on her restraints, the entire room flares a sickening green and the machine practically spits him out of the way like a rag doll.

"Mary Jane? _Jesus._ Mary Jane."

Peter isn't moving.

"Are you alright?"

Harry is by her side, fiddling with the restraints. Her left leg is freed, and then her right. She is standing on the platform now, her arms dangling where they are still held. She is breathing, breathing in and out, her heartbeat steady, her body calm, her eyes set on Peter, who hasn't so much as flinched.

"Mary Jane—"

Harry releases the last restraint and her body pitches forward. He reaches his arms out to catch her, but at once her legs are balanced and sure.

"Don't touch me," she says, pushing past Harry. It is easy to move him, to push him with this strange electrified strength in her palms. She flies forward, still barefoot, crashing to her knees at the spot where Peter is collapsed on the floor.

"Peter," she breathes.

How many times has she imagined this moment, when she finally peels off the mask and reveals him, when there are finally no secrets left? But not like this. God, not like this. There is nothing profound or telling about this, there is no love or trust or understanding, only terror that overwhelms her until it's roaring in her ears.

The mask comes off so easily, and there he is. His eyes shut, his skin too pale, his cheek matted with blood. She slides his head onto her lap and puts a hand to his forehead, pushing the unruly hair out of his face. "Get up," she tells him. The words are pleading and desperate and stuck in her throat. If he would just open his eyes, if he would just make a sound—but he is like marble in her hands, the warmth of life leaving him.

She wills herself not to crumple. She can't let herself fall apart, she can't let herself accept this, because it will be the end of her. She is so inextricably tied to him now, despite every effort not to be—despite every traitorous, guilty moment that she swore she'd never think of him again, despite every misunderstanding and complication, despite the _year_ that she left here and walked around like a ghost in an unfamiliar city—and above all, despite herself. Despite the heartache and the determination not to let anybody hurt her, not to ever let anybody close enough to hurt her again, she has only ever felt like fit into a place in this world when Peter is beside her.

She wrenches her eyes off of his too still face. "What the _hell_ did you do to him," she says through her teeth.

Harry is eerily still. "You knew," he says. A bitter sound escapes him, and he stares down at the two of them with disgust. "I thought I was protecting you. But you _knew_, you bitch, you knew all along."

MJ eases Peter's head back onto the floor, as gently as she can with her shaking hands. She hoists herself up to face him, and the expression on his face is venomous and hard, but she is unafraid. Without Peter, there is _nothing_ left for her to lose.

"You killed him," she says. The words tremble through her body, terrible and profound, but there is no capacity for grief in her. There is only focused and primal _rage_.

"He did that all on his own," says Harry, without a trace of remorse. "The serum is the only way to absorb the power of that current. It's lethal on its own, and he knew that, but with a God complex like his—"

"You _killed_ him," she says again.

Harry stares at her, and before he says anything she has decided she is going to end him. She doesn't care how, she doesn't care if it kills her in the process, but she is going to find some way to _finish_ him, once and for all. She flexes her fingers and feels the impossible power in them, feels the serum coursing through her veins, pulsing with the intoxicating thought of watching Harry at her mercy, drawing his last breath.

"Good _fucking_ riddance."

She opens her mouth to say something back, but she is out of words, senseless and broken. As she advances on him all that escapes her is a murderous scream. She raises her fist, and there is an unexpected grace and precision when she delivers the blow, her body poised as if she has done this a thousand times, as if she were _born_ to destroy. Harry tries to duck out of the way, and he is fast beyond belief, but somehow she anticipates it and the blow strikes him hard enough that he stumbles back.

Harry laughs, low and ghastly. "You think I won't hit back?"

She grits her teeth and swings again, missing this time, crying out in fury when her fist crashes through a wall instead of him.

He laughs at her again. "You may have power now, Mary Jane, but you have no idea how to use it. You're useless as ever."

She ignores him. She may not be nearly as practiced as he is, but there is something he is not accounting for: there is murder in her heart.

Her body moves like a machine, acting without thought, only the intention to make him _hurt_. She kicks him in the shin and in the brief moment he is surprised at the impact of it, she twists her entire body, hooking her elbow and plunging it at his ribcage.

He coughs out, a dark and sinister curve on his lip. "Fine," he says. "_Fine_."

And then he lunges at her, grabbing the collar of her shirt and lifting her up in the air, slamming her against the wall. She hisses at the noise, but she is beyond feeling the pain, and kicks at him savagely until he loosens his grip just enough that she can twist out of it. He delivers a blow that sweeps her legs out from under her and she hits the floor, _hard_, and before she can get up Harry pins her there by her upper arms.

"You think he loved you?" he says. "You should have heard him when I found out the truth. How he _begged_ me not to tell you. Not poor, stupid, clueless Mary _Jane_."

For a split second it is frightening to look at him, because there is too much recognition in his eyes. They are not very much different, the two of them. They are two people on the brink, two people full of hate, two people who have _nothing left_. They are two lost and forgotten people, with nobody left to love them. No wonder Harry tried to win her back. In a horrible way, the two of them deserve each other.

"He could never trust you. He could never let you in. You know why?"

He breathes hard, right into her face, letting the pause sink in before he delivers the blow.

"Because no matter how hard you try, you're just Mary Jane. You will _never_ be able to live up to her."

She wrenches an arm out from under him and strikes his jaw. She feels a satisfying crunch as her fist connects with his face. "How _dare_ you," she seethes. If he thinks that the jab will weaken her, he is disastrously wrong. She wrenches her body and frees herself from his hold, thinking of Gwen, of the hole she ripped through their lives the day of her death. How it is all so irreparable, the lives they once held, and so unfathomable how far they are from those blissful and innocent days.

This time she manages to flip her body around to pin him. She holds him down by his arms and kicks him in the gut, and he's still laughing as he grunts in pain.

"You can fight it all you want, but it won't change a thing. The party's over. We're the only ones left."

The words tear out of her, sniveling and raw, from some tortured depth in her chest: "I _love _him."

"That isn't enough. It never is," Harry says. His grin is gruesome. She can see blood glistening on his front teeth. "You made damn well sure I knew that."

He reaches out to strike her and she grabs his arm mid-swing and grips it hard, harder than she thought possible, and hears the crunch of bone between her fingers. Harry screams but she holds it tighter before she releases it, and with his arm dangling on the floor she uses her free hand to wrap around his neck and squeeze.

He cackles again, or at least he tries to. "You—wouldn't," he chokes.

She presses harder. His face is as red as a tomato, his eyes and lips bulging. He opens his mouth to talk again and she squeezes, the skin of his neck warm and pulsing between her fingers. She won't let him say another word, not if she can help it.

He wrenches his good arm up in an attempt to free himself, but she has the advantage now. She catches it and throws it down easily; he needs oxygen and it has made him weak.

"Mary Jane …"

He is so pathetic, wriggling in fear beneath her. To think he called her _fragile_. To think he called her _weak_. To think for years he thought of her as some flighty, stupid girl who needed taking care of, and thought of himself as her rescuer. To think she could have ever _loved_ this man who has single-handedly ripped away every good thing left in the world.

"Mary _Jane_."

He is wrong about her. She can do anything she wants. Hasn't she already? She escaped the house she grew up in. She made her dreams come true. She cut off all her ties, anything that could hold her down. She _has_ no weaknesses anymore. So what if she is alone? When hasn't she been?

Harry's eyes are still dancing, mocking her with their knowing glint as they roll back into his head.

"Mary Jane—_stop_."

With a shudder she releases him.

"Peter?"

His head is tilted to the side, and his eyes are open and staring at her. The sight of it takes her breath away, and she is suddenly dizzy, disbelieving, and the chaos of her thoughts screech to a grinding halt.

"Peter," she gasps, not even aware that her legs are flying out from under her until she is suddenly at his side. He offers her the weakest of sheepish smiles before she reaches him, and she sinks to her knees beside him, gathering him into her lap, touching his hair, his chest, the curve of his chin. "_Peter_."

He lifts a weary hand up and grabs hers, lacing their fingers together. "Hey," he murmurs. "It's alright."

Her throat is tight with the overwhelming relief, and tears spill down her cheeks, landing and slinking down the material of his uniform. "I—I—"

The steadiness in his gaze, the familiarity and comfort of that little, crooked half-smile—it undoes her. She feels everything in full force, her humanity rushing back. He is so gentle, so good, so well-intentioned, and she—she almost killed a man.

She feels herself coming down from what feels like some sort of a high, feels her body sagging in exhaustion. She hiccups against a sob, willing herself not to fall apart here, because the nightmare isn't over yet.

"I'm sorry," she says. She isn't sure which part she is sorry for. There is just too much.

"You knew," he says. He gives her hand a light squeeze. "You knew and you never said a word."

She nods, just barely, and then braces herself. She thinks he will be upset with her. She is holding her breath, holding down another sob threatening to choke out of her throat. She shuts her eyes, just for the briefest of moments, and another wave of tears cascade, molten on her cheeks.

"Mary Jane Watson," Peter says. She opens her eyes. He is smiling at her, and just slightly shakes his head. "You never cease to surprise me."

She laughs out loud in one gasping, blubbering, graceless breath.

"How long?" he asks.

"Just before I left New York," she says. "I thought I knew—but I wasn't sure. Not until I came back. Not until I met you on that rooftop."

He nods, and she can see he wants to ask her more, but then his eyes flick over to Harry's unconscious form on the other side of the room. "Listen," he says. "Over the years I've been working with Captain Johnson. Gwen's … stepfather."

MJ nods. As if she could ever forget a thing like that.

"I tipped him off before I came here. The place should be surrounded. But you know I can't come out, not—not like this."

"I'll go," she says. She is still holding his hand in hers. She can't imagine letting it go. "I'll tell him what happened, I'll tell him you're still down here and not to send any other officers."

Peter shakes his head, lifting his arm experimentally from the floor. "I should be able to get up by the time you reach him. Tell him to bring everyone. If he wakes up, he'll outmatch Johnson, easily."

"Right. Okay." She strokes her fingers through his hair one last time, and he gives her a reassuring smile before she releases him, easing his body back to the floor. "I'll be right back."

She runs for the door, and even in that simple movement she can sense that whatever unfathomable power she had before is fading. It is a relief to know it was only temporary, whatever made her so callous, so strong and so cruel, so similar to Harry. She doesn't want the burden of that power, or the insanity that comes with it. If Peter hadn't stopped her, there is no doubt in her mind that Harry would be dead.

Her hand poised on the doorknob when she hears just the slightest rustle of fabric. She whips around, feeling an inexplicable and sudden unease, and that's when she sees it: Harry upright, his eyes wild, his mouth twisted into a snarl. He is not looking at her, has not even realized that she has turned around. He is staring at Peter, still helpless on the floor, and reaching into his pocket in one swift gesture.

Somehow she knows what is going to happen, knows before Peter does, knows before Harry even executes the throw. "No," she says under her breath, and she leaps forward, racing toward Peter as Harry flicks his wrist back and tosses the device.

The resulting explosion knocks the wind out of her. She just barely manages to reach Peter, just barely manages to shield him in time. The heat and the flame rip at her back, loose, jagged pieces of the bomb puncturing the skin of her calves, her thighs, the backs of her arms.

She bites back a scream, holding onto him as the dust settles, as her body tries to process the overwhelming pain.

"Mary Jane." It's Peter's voice. It sounds oddly far away, like he is underwater, and she realizes he has moved himself out from under her.

She struggles to look up at him, trying to seem calm, trying to seem brave. With extraordinary effort he hoists himself up and says, "Why would you do that? _Why_ would you—god, Mary Jane."

She has never seen him afraid before. She feels her stomach lurch, and knows that it must be bad, worse than it feels, if he is staring at her like this. His eyes are wide and welling, his forehead twisted in distress. She glances behind him; Harry is gone. There is only a plume of smoke where he was standing.

She slides her eyes shut, just for a moment.

"Jesus, Mary Jane, don't do that. Hey."

She blinks and tries to force her eyes back open. It is surprisingly difficult. His hand is on her cheek, his calloused thumb grazing her skin. "Stay with me," he says. "Come on. Help is coming. Stay with me, you'll be okay, I promise, just keep your eyes open."

Peter has always been a terrible liar. She would smile at the thought, but she is not sure how to command her muscles anymore. There is a darkness in the periphery, closing in, and it is easy to slide into, easy to embrace.

"Mary Jane. _Please_."

"Can I—can I—" Her ribcage won't quite expand, won't push the air in, but she has to say it now, when she is her bravest. She has to say it now, in case she never gets the chance to say it again. "I just have to tell you something."

"No," says Peter. His voice is thick. The pressure of his thumb against her cheek starts to numb, until she can't really feel it at all, and he seems to sense this. He leans down, pressing his lips to her forehead, lingering there. She feels a peace flood over her, feels the meaning of the gesture, the words he is not willing to say. "No," he says again, "not like this. You tell me later, okay? We'll get you out of here, and then … and then …"

"Peter," she says. It is barely a whisper. She has never been good at listening to him, and she isn't going to start now. She closes her eyes. She doesn't want to see the fear in his when she says this. "I love you. And I have loved you … for a _very_ long time."

She hears a devastated breath escape him, feels the tremor in his touch. "Oh, Mary Jane," he says, his voice pleading. "Don't."

Everything is inexplicably warm. She tries to reach for his hand, reach for some part of him that is solid under her touch, but she can't. Peter hugs her forehead to his chest. If she is going to die, she thinks, then she doesn't want anything more than this. He is all she could ever have asked for. He's here.

"I just had to tell you once. I just—I needed—I needed you to know."

He doesn't say anything for a few heavy, wrenching moments. He tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and she stares up at him, and sees that his eyes are streaming, that he is cracked and raw and desperate. It is all the confirmation that she needs: this is probably it for her. It's too late.

"That day," he says, his voice so quiet in the still of the room. "That day when I saw you on the platform."

She stares up at him and waits. He opens his mouth and a splintering, broken noise echoes out of his throat before he continues: "It was like … I started to breathe again. It was like you brought me back to life."

She remembers that day. _I felt it too_, she wants to tell him. It was like being reborn, like starting over again. She had forgotten what it was like to have something to live for.

"Mary Jane—I never told you the truth because I wanted to spare you. It was selfish of me." He shakes his head, struggling to explain. "Like I just wanted one perfect, untainted thing and … there you were, so beautiful, so determined, so special. You have no idea. You have _no idea_. You never have."

Peter's face is blurry now, and her thoughts are trying to take her far away. She fights to stay alert, fights to keep herself awake, in his arms, listening to his words. They are all she is clinging on to—they are all that is keeping her here.

"I would have kept you in the dark forever, you know." He sucks in another painful breath and says in a passionate, soulful rush, "I would have tortured myself for years with the thought of you so close, knowing that I couldn't be with you. I would have let it hurt forever just to keep you _exactly _the way you are."

Her breaths are too quick and too shallow. She is happy here. She is safe. She just wants to close her eyes, just for a moment, just for a little while. Not for long.

"_Please_, Mary Jane." He is so far away now. "_Please_. Stay with me."

The last thought in her mind is of the day she moved in with Peter and Gwen, when they were all twenty-two, when everything was scary and exciting and new. It was a blistering hot day in August, and Peter was carrying some of her stuff, taking the stairs two at a time while she sprinted to keep up. She wanted to get his attention, to try and thank him however sheepishly for letting her move in, but she couldn't reach him. He was too determined. Too fast.

She feels like she has spent every moment since in that stairwell, chasing Peter Parker, watching him get further and further away.

"Mary Jane—_please_."

She lets her eyes slide shut, and in her mind, she finally reaches him; he turns to her at the top of the stairs and smiles broadly, smiles like he loves her, smiles like they don't have a trouble in the world, and in that moment, she is the happiest she has ever been.

* * *

Guys. A few days ago I had no _idea_ what Tumblr was. And then when I discovered that not only were people on it actually reading the story, but making GIFS and AWESOME PICTURES and quoting things, I just actually started bawling, right in the middle of the work. Like, had to go to the bathroom and collect myself, I was so overwhelmed. I can't even express what it means to me that people are enjoying this enough to make art based on it - I honestly started this story on a whim, and didn't even fathom that anybody would like it all that much since I initially got some backlash for introducing MJ into a Gwen-and-Peter-focused series, but I am so happy that people are reading and doing these crazy unimaginable things with it online. I have actually literally no idea how to use Tumblr or photoshop or anything, and was so shocked and amazed by what people online have been doing. THANK YOU. Really, sincerely, thank you, because I'm trying to break into this terrifying industry where I'm singing all over the place and sometimes I feel like my heart is going to break if I have to endure one more day singing in some little dive while people ignore me eating their dinner, and then it's like - I can't even complain, because I am just totally floored to see people doing things with this story. I just feel like I can keep gunning for this because strangers on the internet believe in me. Is that unhealthy? Because that's what is happening.

I just wish I could hug each and every one of you reading this. I got myself a Tumblr now, it's the same as my fanfiction name. Come say hi!


	24. Chapter 24

**Perpendicular**

* * *

"Miss Watson?"

The nurse says her name hesitantly, as if she is interrupting something. MJ doesn't know why. She spends most of her time here staring at the wall.

She turns to the nurse. "Yes?"

"You'll need somebody to accompany you home from the hospital."

She looks out the window, out toward the street. It's snowing. There are children scattered across a playground, throwing snowballs, their mouths wide open with soundless, happy shrieks.

"Miss Watson."

It's so beautiful here—the snow. In Manhattan the snow turned into gray slush the moment after it hit the ground. Now she is in a hospital just outside the city, and everything is pristine and suburban, orderly and predictable.

She straightens herself up on the hospital bed and tries not to cringe. It hurts, but it doesn't hurt nearly as much as it used to. Most of the wounds on her back have scarred over in the last few weeks, and she's been able to walk around the hospital under supervision. It hasn't been an easy recovery. But she is more than ready to leave.

"I don't have anyone," she says. "I'll sign the discharge papers myself."

The nurse puckers her lips in disapproval, but she doesn't say a word. She knows that MJ has refused visitors since her admittance. She knows it isn't her place to ask why.

After the nurse leaves MJ considers the clothes strewn out on the bed by her feet. A pair of worn jeans, a sweater with the logo to some college she's never heard of, a tank top and a pair of sneakers. The clothes aren't hers, but she doesn't have any of her own here. All her clothes are at Peter's apartment. And she'd rather accept the handout than ask for them back.

She should probably have some sort of plan for what happens next, but in all honesty she hasn't let herself really think beyond the hospital parking lot. She won't be returning to New York. She knew that in the first few hours—when everything was still a fog of pain and confusion and fear, there was one distinct and clear thought: she would never go back.

Still, as her last few hours in the hospital dwindle away, she wonders what good that will do. Suddenly the world feels impossibly small, like no matter how far she goes, no matter how strange the city or unfamiliar the place, she will never be quite far enough from the one that destroyed her.

The doctor comes in and talks to her for awhile. MJ is listening, but it's all information she has heard before: prescriptions for pain medications, instructions for taking care of the injuries, a phone number to reach him on so he can refer her to another doctor wherever she chooses to live. He suggests in a careful and pointed voice that she should see a therapist, using words like _adjustment period_ and _big transition_ when what he really means is, _at some point you're going to have to come to grips with your crippling guilt, and the fact that you'll never look the same again. _

She takes the forms and the numbers and the prescriptions and thanks him. She's staring out the window again before he even leaves the room.

In the three excruciatingly long weeks she has spent here, she has only once been able to see herself in a mirror. Left alone for the briefest of moments, she turned her back to it and twisted her neck around to see: the once pale, unblemished skin of her back was raw and red, matted with mismatched scars and burns.

She knows she should be grateful to be alive. But in that moment she wasn't thinking of that: she was thinking of the sparkling dress with the plunging back she wore to that gala all those years ago, she was thinking of the photos she planned to take on a beach trip she never took, she was thinking of Peter's fingers digging into the skin of her bare shoulders as the two of them fell into his bed.

She can't believe she ever thought she was ugly before. She wasn't ugly. She was awkward, maybe, and imperfect, but this—_this_ is ugly.

Not that it even matters all that much. She has no use for looking pretty anymore. It used to be that her looks provided somewhat of a shield from the danger of the world, and she knew how it worked—she was little, she was cute, she made men feel obligated to protect her. It was an implicit understanding as a child that grew clearer to her as she grew older, and she would be lying if she claimed that she never took comfort in it.

But now there is nothing that MJ needs protecting from. She will be strong on her own, because she doesn't want or need anybody to fight her battles ever again.

She heads over to the bathroom attached to the room, still walking a bit gingerly. She pointedly avoids her reflection in the mirror as she slides into the unfamiliar clothes. The jeans sag at her waistline and her toes pinch in the shoes, but she somehow feels better putting them on, knowing that she can leave here and assimilate into the real world again, where nobody wakes her up to take medication or hovers over her bed with a chart at bizarre hours of the night. She wants to be anonymous again. She wants to fade into a crowd and work a nondescript job and go home alone at night where there's nobody she can _hurt_.

It isn't running away this time. It isn't like Chicago. Because this time it's permanent—this time she is leaving for good.

It takes them a few hours to finish all of her paperwork, but MJ doesn't really mind the wait. It gives her more time to think. She has a little bit of money saved up from the show, because OsCorp footed all the medical bills she wracked up, since the incident took place in one of their labs. She is sure her understudy has long replaced her, not that she even bothered to ask after all the necessary phone calls were made explaining the situation. There is nothing to keep her here.

Her heart constricts for the briefest of moments. Of course, there is still something.

MJ signs the papers without really looking them over. She'll let OsCorp sort through the rest of it later; she doesn't really care anymore.

"Is there a bus stop nearby?" she asks the receptionist. They're way out of the way any subway stations.

The woman shakes her head. "I'll call you a taxi."

"No, no, it's fine," says MJ, pulling out her phone. "I'll do it myself."

But the receptionist insists, claiming that she has to have some sort of transportation lined up before they can release her. MJ waits for a few minutes, thinking she might just cave and take the taxi, but then the receptionist walks away from her desk for a few moments and MJ leaves without saying a word.

Nobody tries to stop her. She looks back hesitantly, then to her left and to her right, but there are only a few people out—a boy slouching against the wall, an old man in a wheelchair getting helped into a car, a nurse on a smoking break. None of them are even glancing as she walks past, so she continues out to the parking lot, heading toward the main road. She'll call a taxi when she gets her bearings, or she'll walk somewhere until she figures out what she wants to do. It doesn't really matter. She has no place to be.

She checks the pocket of the hoodie to make sure she has her wallet and her cell phone and then she starts to walk across the parking lot. She only makes it a few steps forward before the boy slouching against the wall snaps up from his perch—from the periphery she can see him stalking toward her, and she closes her eyes, exhaling a long and weary breath. How did she not notice him there right away?

He doesn't say anything, but she can tell that he has stopped, directly in front of her. She opens her eyes and sees Peter for the first time in a month.

She has been so comfortably numb for the last few weeks that it still manages to surprise her when her heart wrenches at the sight of him. There is a part of her that will always be so fierce and loyal to him, a part of her that will yearn and pine and _ache_. After weeks of convincing herself she was walking away from this once and for good, one look and she is paralyzed, one look and she is half a second away from falling apart.

She breathes in slowly, trying to hide the tremor in her chest. "Why are you here?" she asks.

It is too hard to look at him. His eyes are too wide, the sockets like bruises on his face, as if he hasn't slept in weeks. He steps forward and she feels those maddened eyes drinking her in, staring at every inch of her. She is glad the sweater covers everything up. She doesn't ever want him to see it, doesn't want him to remember her this way, now that she is never going to see him again.

He doesn't answer her question, just takes a step forward to hold her face in his palms. His hands are warm, and the intimacy of the gesture, the forwardness of it, is something she is not prepared for, so she keeps her face as neutral as a stone and shrugs her chin out of his grasp.

"Don't."

He retracts his hands quickly, as if the command has burned him. For a moment he stands there, thinking that she might relent, and even though it's killing her, she won't. She stands her ground, trying to look resigned and sure in these too-tight shoes and these too-fresh scars and says, "Peter, please move."

He shakes his head. The look in his eyes is insistent. "Where are you going?"

MJ opens her mouth to lie, but it occurs to her that she can't even do that. She wouldn't even know where to begin, what kind of lie to tell.

In the few seconds she takes to answer, Peter pleads with her, "Come with me."

Why does he get to decide? _Because he always has_. She shakes her head and forces her heartbeat to steady, forces her arms to stay limp at her sides. A gust of wind picks up over the parking lot, spraying the dust of the top layer of snow across their ankles and calves.

Peter gnaws on his lower lip, then says in a low and cautious voice, "You have every right to be angry with me, but—"

"I'm not angry," she says, firmly. This time she looks at him when she says it, because it's the truth and she needs him to know that. "Peter, I'm not angry with you."

He holds her gaze for a moment, and then his brows knot and he looks away, shifting his weight and crunching his shoes in the slush. For a moment he doesn't say anything, but she can tell he is building up to something. With every breath that pushes out of him there's a cloud of fog.

"I—" She isn't expecting him to sound so upset when he speaks again, and apparently neither is he, because he takes another second to collect himself. "Every day, I came here. Every _day_, Mary Jane—and you—you wouldn't let me see you."

"Peter …"

"Do you have any _idea_—Jesus, Mary Jane, you've been killing me. I had no idea if you were okay, I had nothing, you've just—you've been _killing_ me."

The conviction he uses behind the words terrifies her. She takes a step back, as if she can shrink away from them. This is exactly what she didn't want. One more person whose life she holds in her hands, one more person she can hurt. She had that responsibility once, didn't she? And she let Harry turn into a madman, into a _murderer_, because she wasn't strong enough, wasn't inherently _good_ enough, not the way people like Peter are.

And here she is, at it again. How many people will be punished for loving her?

"I'm alright," she says stiffly. It's all she can manage. "And you … you're okay, too."

He looks at her, his mouth cracked open in disbelief. "Yeah," he finally says, with a decidedly bitter puff of air. "I'm great."

She doesn't know what to say to him. It would be so easy to cry right now, to confess to every guilt and insecurity and fear, and to cut this tight, strained cord the she is holding on to, pulling them further apart. There is something wretched in Peter's expression that makes it too hard to hold his gaze. She has never felt like more of an awful person than she does right now, registering the depths of Peter's hurt, but she supposes that is her penance. Peter may feel horrible, but because she is responsible for it, she will always, _always_ feel worse.

"Miss Watson."

The voice is scolding. She winces and recognizes it as the nurse from before.

"The discharge papers made it very clear that you had to have a secure form of transportation before you—"

"She has me," says Peter, without missing a beat.

MJ shuts her eyes, feeling her lungs fill with exasperated, weary air. When she opens them she sees that the nurse's expression has softened. She wonders why on earth the woman would be so quick to believe Peter when for all she knows he's some stranger off the street, but then she realizes—if Peter really had come by every day, the entire hospital staff must know him by now.

"Mr. Parker," says the nurse warmly, confirming MJ's suspicions.

Peter offers her a bare smile that doesn't reach his eyes. "I'll take care of her. Do you need me to sign anything?"

A few minutes later MJ is sitting in the passenger seat of May's old, beat-up car, staring out the window, pointedly keeping her face away from Peter's. His eyes are set on the road as if this is a perfectly normal circumstance, as if this had been the plan all along. She has always appreciated his unexpected stubbornness. That is, until now.

"Harry's in rehab," Peter offers quietly, after a few miles on a stretch of open road.

The closer they get to Manhattan the more on edge MJ feels. "Harry's in prison," she corrects him, shifting her weight in the chair and trying to further the distance between them. The healing skin of her back stretches in protest and she winces, glad that he can't see her face.

Peter's eyes are still on the road. "Yeah, but he's getting help."

She stiffens. "Don't tell me you've gone to see him."

"No," says Peter. After a beat, he adds: "I haven't. I won't."

He sounds so resolute that she believes him without asking for an explanation. Still, there is something lingering in the aftermath of his words. He is leaving an open end here, prying her for an answer. But the truth is, she has no idea what she is going to do about Harry—if she'll ever see him again, or if she'll spend a lifetime trying to erase him. Right now it doesn't matter. Right now it's just moving cars and industrial buildings and road.

The both of them are quiet for a few minutes, but MJ can sense that Peter is mulling something over. She should have thoughts, too. Dark and complicated thoughts. Here she is with this boy who has inadvertently affected every minute of her adult life, every thought and feeling and experience; here she is with Peter, the only person she ever trusted who didn't make her regret it. And here she is, feeling addled and simple and letting the time pass as the wheels whir below them, as she lets Peter slip between her fingers.

"I'm _sorry_."

The words chill her with their intensity. His eyes are still set straight ahead on the road, his fingers gripping too tightly on the steering wheel. She doesn't dare look long enough to see the rest of his face. She purses her lips, her throat tight with guilt—what does he have to be sorry for? Peter, who has only ever acted out of love, even when everyone around him has acted out of spite?

"I'm sorry," he says again. "For not being there in time. For letting him hurt you. For not telling you the truth about what was going on, for—"

"_Peter_—"

"No," he says. "I'm sorry. For—for all those things, but mostly—mostly for not telling you how I felt about you."

She hardly breathes after he finishes. She stares out the window, biting her lip, willing her expression not to change.

He shouldn't be sorry. She doesn't feel that same insecurity she felt before; she knows that he loves her, and she doesn't have to be told, doesn't need him to tell her now. Now that she doesn't want him to love her, it is a plain and simple fact that he does, no matter how unworthy of it she feels.

_Don't. _It's the only thought she has, dizzying and persistent. _Don't_, _don't_. She doesn't want this. Being in this car with him is suddenly suffocating, because she is bursting with four years' worth of confessions, like she is swollen with them and they are about to burst. She shifts her weight in the seat, uncomfortable in her skin, uncomfortable in his sentiments. She is already so imperfect. She is already so ugly, both inside and out. If he still loves her now, what can she possibly do to change his mind?

She knows how. She could tell him right now that she doesn't love him. She could tell him to pull the car over, tell him she is getting out and staying out forever; he wouldn't stop her, not if she really fought for it, because Peter isn't like Harry. Peter may love her, but never enough to restrict her freedom.

But instead she is sitting here. Not telling him she loves him, but not asking him to leave. It is an excruciating limbo, and she is forced to acknowledge that she hasn't made a choice at all: that she has been prolonging this uncertainty since that first lucid day in the hospital when she asked them to keep Peter away.

"I'm leaving New York."

She doesn't consciously mean to say it, but as soon as she does she knows why. There is some part of her that is testing him. She remembers so many times in the past, so many heartbreaking times she suggested just this and he told her to go without a second thought. It will crush her if he does it again. It will crush her, but it will make the rest of it so easy.

His voice is gentle, almost chiding. She can tell he is disappointed that she has changed the subject. "No, you're not."

"I am," she says. She doesn't mean for the words to hitch, but they do, so she says firmly, "I'm going."

"Mary Jane, were you even listening to me? You can't just—"

"I'm leaving," she says again, overpowering him. She wonders if she just says it over and over again she can convince herself that it is happening, that she is really surrendering him for good. "I'm leaving, I'm never coming back here, I don't want to go back—"

"Hey," says Peter, and whatever he is going to say next is immediately drowned out by the sound of her fist hitting the dashboard. She's staring at him now, unabashed, feeling the heat of her own fear, her own self-loathing, like it is lava in her throat: "I can't _be_ here, don't take me back there, I can't, just stop, stop the car—"

"Calm down," he says, and even though he is the only person on earth who can say that without sounding demeaning, it does nothing to comfort her.

Her heart is slamming in her chest. She should never have gotten in this car with him and she is being punished for her indecision, for dragging this on longer than she has to. One more mile closer to the city and it will suck her in like a vacuum, it will paralyze her, it will silence all her screams. "I can't, I _can't,_" she wheezes. The pain in her back is pulsing and raw. "Stop the car, please, just - "

The car screeches out from under them and she gasps in surprise as he pulls the car off the road to the shoulder.

"What are you _doing?_"

"I'm—I'm stopping the car," says Peter, a little stunned.

For a split second the both of them are silent, listening to the traffic rush past them, and then in one swift movement MJ unbuckles herself, tears open the passenger side door, and _runs_.

She has no idea where they are or where she is going. They are still at least twenty miles from the city and there is nothing here but unpopulated woods, but she tears past the shadows and the branches and the snow like a madwoman, as if there is some destination, some place she is headed to other than here.

She runs and runs, but not nearly far enough; she is weak now. She is feeble where she once was strong, the weeks wrapped in gauze and laying in hospital beds catching up faster than she can outrun them. She feels that familiar sensation of air ripping through her lungs, but she cannot push through it, not like she could back then.

Her body slows against her will and she trips, half-falling into the slush. Peter is already, not at all winded behind her, grabbing her shoulders to prevent her from hitting the icy ground, and she cries out when he does. He doesn't know there are scars there, doesn't know that they are still fresh and just beneath her skin. He holds her upright and then releases her in horror, sucking in a breath as he realizes what he has done.

"I'm sorry," he starts, but she interrupts him.

"Stop," she cries, clutching to her shoulders, where they are now _aching_ in pain, surging with every beat of her heart. "_Stop_ being sorry. _Stop_ it, Jesus, Peter, you have nothing to be sorry for."

"Then _why_ are you—"

"Because," she spits out, through the pain, through the unbearable cold and the numbness in her heart. "_Because_—I'm not like you, Peter," she says. There are tears streaming down her cheeks, graceless and ugly and raw. "I'm not like you, I'm not like—I'm not like _Gwen_," she adds, almost relieved by his visible flinch, because she needs for him to hurt, needs for him to leave her alone. "I'm not good. I'm not. All I've ever done is _hurt _people."

She isn't expecting him to recover so quickly. "How could you possibly think that?" He takes a step forward, as if he might reach out for her, as if he might try to embrace her, but she flinches so obviously that he stops himself. "Jesus. Mary Jane. Where is this coming from?"

"I almost _killed_ Harry," she shrieks, over the roar of the wind and the cars and the dusk. "I almost _killed_ him, and I relished every god damn _second_ of it. I was right there," she says, holding her hands up, as if to demonstrate, her fingers shaking unbearably—"I was right there, squeezing the life out of him, and all I could think about was making him pay, letting him _die_."

She wants Peter to look shocked, even horrified. She wants him to realize the magnitude of this confession and feel appropriately disgusted with her, the way she has felt whenever she has thought about it since. She wants him to hate her. She wants him to _leave._

Instead his expression seems to sink in sympathy. He takes a step closer to her.

"It was the serum. Not you. You know that, right?" Peter asks, his voice so quiet against the wind that she strains to hear him. "The serum did that to you. You could never be that cruel on your own. How do you think Harry became the way that he was?"

She shakes her head. She tries to choke back the sob working its way up her throat, but her chest heaves with the effort, and she moans, "No, Peter. Even now—even _now,_ I hate him." As she says the words she finally acknowledges their truth. She blames Harry, as much as she blames herself, and there is an unresolved and ceaseless hatred for him that seems to grow larger every day. "And the worst part is—it's my fault. I made him this way. We both know it's true."

"You didn't _make_ him do anything," says Peter, his eyes set on hers with enough passion that for a moment she stands so still she can't breathe. "You didn't make him do those drugs, or hate his father, or abuse his research. That was _all_ him—"

"Because of _me_," MJ cries. "Because I didn't—because I couldn't—because I let it happen," she says, and before she can stop herself, she adds, "because I loved _you_, Peter, so much longer than you know, and I didn't—I didn't notice what was happening to him, I didn't even care, because I wanted you so badly that I couldn't possibly do anything else."

This has the desired effect: she has caught him off guard. He isn't expecting her to say this. He is looking at her with such astonishment that she might as well have just sucked the words right out of him.

"That's right," she says. Her voice isn't shaking nearly as much now that she has some semblance of control over this conversation. It's not too late. She can still push him away. "I never told Harry, but I didn't have to. He knew, he must have known, and look what it did to him. For years I was with him, and wishing like some stupid, _pathetic_ idiot that I could be with you instead, even when—even when Gwen was still alive." Peter cringes and she takes a step forward, takes advantage of his momentary weakness, and says, "I didn't leave for Chicago because I was scared of Harry, or because Gwen was dead. I left because I couldn't _look_ at you without _hating_ myself."

She is gasping by the time she is finished, staring straight into his stricken face. There. _There_. She has finally done it. She can see the incomprehension, and then the disbelief, and she braces herself, waiting for his disgust. Now he knows the truth. How disloyal, how selfish, how traitorous she has been. The extent of the unforgivable things she has done. It isn't everyone around her who has failed her—she has failed everybody else. She failed her father by abandoning him in Queens, she failed Harry by letting him think she loved him, and she has been failing Peter from the start.

It should feel better to get this off her chest, but she feels wretched. Empty. As if the burden of this secret was all that was filling her up past few years, until there was no room for any other feeling or thought, and now she is standing here with nothing.

Peter is still dumbstruck. They are standing on an incline, so his eyes are directly on level with hers, wide and searching her face as if she can offer more of an explanation, but how can she possibly tell him more than she already has?

"_Say_ something," she exclaims, feeling the words wrench out of her stomach.

He blinks at her, bewildered. "I—I had no idea," he says faintly.

It is taking too long for it to hit him, but of course it would. Peter would never believe that she was capable of such deceit, wouldn't believe that anyone is, because Peter is incapable of it himself.

"That was kind of the point," she says, her voice bitter. She is coming down from the high of her own confession, feeling breathless and spent. She hasn't been outside for this long in weeks. The scars of her back seem to stretch in protest. She is so weary, so hopeless, and without consciously deciding to, she sits down in the snow.

She stares down at the muddy, too-tight shoes that don't belong to her, her entire neck craned over so she doesn't have to look at him. After a few seconds she hears the crunch of Peter's footsteps in the snow, and the rustling of fabric. She winces as he sets his oversized coat over her shoulders. She has so many memories of him in this jacket, on the street with his camera, coming home pink-cheeked in the middle of winter, his fingers poking out of the holes in his gloves. It smells like him. She should shrug it off, but it's so cold, and she is suddenly so tired.

"I have to tell you something." Peter's voice is low and solemn. He's sitting next to her now, shoulders touching, the two of them a pathetic pair in the snow. "Something I—I've never told anyone."

She closes her eyes and listens to the thrum of his voice near her ear. She can tell by his closeness, by the intimacy of this moment, that he thinks he is going to say something that will change her mind. And even though he won't, she lets him try. She'll listen to the sound of his voice and memorize the lilt of it, the offbeat rhythm, the unique little nuances of Peter Parker, because she will probably never talk to him again.

"The day that Gwen died …"

She doesn't mean to stiffen at the sound of Gwen's name, but she can't help it. Even now, even in this moment when they are so alone that they might as well be the last two people on earth, Gwen has found a way to wedge herself between them.

"Her death—it was my fault."

"Peter," she cuts in, unable to help herself. She finally looks at him, and sees the shame glistening in his eyes, sees a lifetime's worth of remorse and pain. "That's not—you know that's not true."

"No, but it is," he says, and this time he is the one who cannot face her. He rips his gaze away from her, pointing his eyes toward the snow, but not before she sees a thick tear fall and hit the ground. "She was falling, and—_god_. I don't—I don't know what I was thinking. I _wasn't_ thinking," he says, and then his voice is so tortured that she can barely understand him, and strains to hear the words: "I guess I just thought, I just thought I would save her, because I had done it so many times, with so many people—so I shot off that web to stop her fall, and—"

He stops abruptly, rubbing his palm to his face as if he is summoning the strength to say whatever it is out loud. "Peter," she bleats, and he shakes his head. He isn't finished.

"When I pulled her up, she was already dead." As he says this his words chill her to the bone. She has never heard anything so haunted, so bottomless and bleak. "The web I used to pull her up—I did it too fast. The impact snapped her neck."

MJ cannot suppress the shuddering gasp that escapes her. It's the way he says it, so plain and honest about the brutality of it, the horror. She closes her eyes and the image of it comes unbidden: Peter, relieved and maybe even a little triumphant, pulling Gwen up and expecting to see glittering eyes and pulsing breaths and the wholeness of her in his arms. She imagines the look on his face as he reaches out for her, as he gathers a body into his arms, as he tries to process the horror of what has happened and the sinister, incorrect angle of her neck. She has to physically shake her head to will it away before it consumes her.

"I thought I could save her," he says. "I thought I always would. And it _killed_ her."

She doesn't say anything. There is nothing she can say, nothing that will soothe him. She knows because she shares this guilt—Harry might not be dead, she so thoroughly destroyed him that he may as well be, and nothing that anyone ever says to her will make her come to terms with it. She is not vain or proud enough to think that anything she says will comfort Peter now.

After a moment she lets her head sink into his shoulder. His body is shaking, but he leans toward her slightly, letting her head fall into the crook of his neck.

"I made a promise." He is breathing the words out, barely comprehensible. "I promised her father, when we were seventeen, that I would stay away from her. To keep her safe." He releases another quaking breath and says, "If I had listened …"

MJ nods into the collar of his shirt. She remembers. She knows. And for the first time, it doesn't hurt her to think of it.

"She loved you," she hears herself saying. How often has she remembered the resolution in Gwen's voice that night, the very last time MJ saw her alive? _It wouldn't mean anything, without him_.

And MJ has to believe Gwen's death wasn't meaningless. She has to believe that it was worth every moment that she and Peter spent together, every secret smile and late night and murmured word between them. She has to believe that there exists the kind of love that is worth dying for.

They sit there in the snow together, their eyes to the ground, their bodies hunched in a shared and interminable grief. She feels so terribly old. Not necessarily in years, but in experience and heartache: she has survived too much, seen too many unimaginable things, been hurt too many times and hurt too many people in return.

She doesn't want this to be the force that connects her to Peter. She doesn't want them to be glued by their shared misery, by the grief of everything they have endured together. She doesn't want him to love her because of all of this; she wants him to love her in _spite_ of it.

But there is no way of extricating themselves from the anguish of the past. She knows this, and has known it since she woke up in the hospital, laying on her stomach with her back on fire. For every precious memory she has of Peter, there are a dozen horrible ones. Every ache and torment of those years she loved him, those years he dismissed her as nothing more than Gwen's friend, every miscommunication and uncrossed line that led them here, to this moment, crying on the side of some highway with nothing but bones and skin holding them together.

She feels his hand, warm against her cheek, and she startles, looking at him. His eyes are hungry, and searching hers. He is going to kiss her. She can sense the intent in his touch, and as his head leans closer to hers she ducks hers down, so his lips rest on her forehead.

There will always be wanting. There will always be yearning and desire and _thirst_. But she sees the pain in his eyes, sees the desperation, and she is afraid more than anything that she is only fulfilling some function for him, some outlet to expend his grief, so that he can focus on something else, if only for a little while.

And she can't take that risk with him. She can't take that risk with anyone, not ever again—it is the line between broken and shattered, between searching and lost. Peter has been the reason for so many things—she will not let him be the one that ends her.

She thinks he might be upset, might try to pull away from her, but instead she feels his hand on the back of her neck, his fingers in her hair. The gesture is so patient and undemanding that she relents, pressing her body closer to his. There is no doubt in her mind that he loves her. She is just afraid that he loves her for all the wrong reasons, and that none of those reasons are near enough.

* * *

"You've got fifteen minutes."

MJ nods, self-consciously tucking her hair behind her ear. She takes a few steps forward and allows the guard to open the door for her.

She doesn't know what she is expecting, but she knows she isn't expecting this. Harry sits in a chair, unrestrained, the setting almost too casual for the occasion. It's one of those expensive, rich people prisons. If it weren't for the guard in the corner she wouldn't know she was in one at all.

But it's more than the posh chair and the oak table between them that throws her off. It's the look of Harry, the Harry sitting in front of her: he is alert, and bright in the eyes, as if he has returned to himself after a long spell of somebody else living in his body.

He swallows hard as she walks in. She maintains careful eye contact—just enough to let him know that she won't be the weaker one here, but not so much that he gleans any unintentional meaning from it. She takes a seat without a word, facing him, pressing her sweaty palms into the fabric of her jeans.

For a long time neither of them says anything. MJ feels his eyes searching her, but there is nothing aggressive in his stare. He may be more present, but with this presence is a distinct weariness. Simple gestures, like moving his hand on the table, tilting his head to the side, they all seem to take an excruciating amount of effort. And if she felt old before, then he certainly looks it—in the time since she has last seen him, he has aged ten years, maybe fifteen. The skin under his eyes is sagging, and his cheeks seem sunken, his skin ashen in color.

She crosses her legs. If he thinks he is going to play some kind of game by not talking, she will not have the patience for it.

"You asked me to come here," she says, her voice neutral.

The truth is, he asked maybe a dozen times. She isn't sure what possessed her to come. Maybe because she is afraid that if she doesn't take care of this now, the way she should have from the start, then she will never shake him. He will only become a monster all over again.

Harry nods. He licks his lips, his eyes darting between her and the tabletop, before he takes a breath and says, "That explosive wasn't _meant_ for you."

She doesn't let her expression change. "I know."

He closes his eyes and takes a breath. "I would never hurt you. Not on purpose. You have to believe me."

She does, is the terrible part. She truly does believe that he never meant her any harm. But she didn't mean him any harm either, and look where he is now—look what she has done to him.

When she doesn't answer him, he says, "I shouldn't have run, Mary Jane. I just—I thought I'd killed you, and I couldn't—I couldn't face it. I wasn't in my right mind." He shakes his head then, acknowledging how flimsy this excuse is, and says, "I'm so glad to see that you're alright."

She grits her teeth at these words. _Alright_. She is sitting here, whole enough in body, so she supposes it's a fitting word. But there is a part of her that wants to slide off her cardigan, wants to turn around in her tank top and expose the awful truths to him—the scars that only seem to look more gruesome as they heal, marring her back like tire tracks, striking and hideous.

It's been a month since she left the hospital. There is still some pain in every day activities, but for the most part the real pain is catching the sight of herself in the mirror. She tries to keep busy. Unfortunately, in this state, there isn't much she can do.

"And Peter … is he …"

MJ purses her lips. She doesn't want to talk to Harry about Peter, not now and not ever. But she can see a sincerity in his eyes, a genuine remorse.

"He's alright, too," she concedes.

Harry slumps a bit in his chair, the relief evident in his posture. She looks past him, toward the door. She knows she has fifteen minutes, but she is already itching to leave.

She owes him this much, though. After years of turning the other cheek, she owes him this.

Harry's eyes lock on hers, compel her to look back at them. "I'm not going to ask for your forgiveness. I could never. Not after what I did."

MJ's fingers wring together in her lap, tight and controlled. She remembers with astonishing clarity the night she first met him: the happy, uninhibited buzz of alcohol in her cheeks, his hands so steady and warm on her skin, the smell of aftershave and the thrill of doing something scary, something adult and _new_, with this handsome stranger who looked at her like she was somebody beautiful.

She finds herself blinking rapidly as tears threaten to prick the back of her eyes. They were children, really. She had no way of knowing that her one reckless whim would lead to this, to the series of circumstances and mistakes that would irrevocably alter them, so that they are sitting in front of each other all these years later looking completely unrecognizable from the kids they were back then.

"I'm not blameless here, either," she says, bowing her chin into her chest.

Harry isn't allowed to get up from the chair, and she has the sense that he isn't going to be the one to prompt a good-bye, but it is evident that they've said everything they need to say here. She pushes her chair back to stand.

"Are you with him now?" The question blurts out of Harry so unexpectedly that MJ sees the guard take a step forward in alarm. "Parker, I mean. Are the two of you …"

She sets her hands on the table in a definitive gesture. This topic is out of bounds. "Take care of yourself, Harry."

He looks back down, nodding slightly, and this is her cue to go.

She leaves feeling drained, and considerably shaken. It seems she is always tired these days, her body still trying to recover from the effects of the serum, from the intensive injuries on her back. She takes the stairs slowly, listening to the sound her footsteps echo through the space.

She stops by the exit to snake her scarf back on around her neck and button up her coat. As she walks outside she turns her face away from the chill of the wind, but not before she sees Peter standing there, leaning against streetlamp and obviously waiting for her to come out.

She pushes her hands into her pockets and goes to him.

"How did you know I'd be here?" she asks.

Peter just shrugs. "I was in the neighborhood. Swinging around." He glances up at the building. "I figured if you were here there could only be one reason why."

"Yeah," she says.

There is a brief silence. Peter looks down at her cautiously, his jaw working like he is about to say something he isn't sure he wants to. "How is he?"

It's a simple question. She just isn't sure she could ever answer it. The Harry she left in that building is so different from any Harry that she has ever known—she'd like to think that maybe someday he will overcome this, that he will emerge from the horror of this situation and find a new purpose, a way to do some good, but she can't say from looking at him that she'll know what happens next. She is starting to learn that most of her assumptions about Harry have been wrong, even as far back as the day they first met.

So instead she shakes her head at him, leaning toward him and pressing her forehead against his chest. He embraces her without question. She never told him she was coming here today, and has no idea if she ever intended to tell him, but she is glad he is here.

It's been a long and listless kind of month. She's been staying with Peter, but it is like they are in some kind of limbo, unafraid to speak openly, unabashed about touching each other, but somehow it never goes any further than that. She sleeps in his bed and he sleeps on the couch, and occasionally she will reach out for his hand, or he'll brush something out of her hair, but it is all straightforward and not at all heavy with intent.

She feels like they are waiting for something. She just can't say what.

"It's good that you went," says Peter, and she thinks it is impossible, how understanding he is about this, how patient. But he knows her by now. He knows that she will never be the type to ask for permission, to warn him in advance, but he also knows that he can trust her. It's the one pivotal thing her relationship with Harry always lacked.

And then it feels like there is some imperceptible shift. As if the ground beneath them is suddenly firmer, as if the sun is just a bit brighter on their cheeks, as if everything is simple and clean. There is still some promise here, some teasing summer wind, and when she takes in a breath she lets herself be overwhelmed by the presence of him, by whatever it is between them. For the first time since that night at OsCorp, she feels herself giving in.

"Peter," she says, because she is going to say something—she is going to tell him that she should have let him see her at that hospital, that she should never have doubted his reasons for loving her, that this past month with him may have been difficult and trying but that she would rather have a thousand more months like it then live one more without him—and even though there are too many words that need saying, and she has nowhere near enough composure to express them all right here, his eyes lock with hers and in an instant it is as if they have already been said.

Her eyelids slide shut as he leans down toward her. The kiss is gentle and sweet, like she is remembering something she has long forgotten, something too precious to have ever been truly lost. He holds a hand to her cheek and she presses herself closer to him, and for the first time in a long time she feels human again. She feels worthy, she feels wanted, she might even feel beautiful.

He pulls away so he can look at her, his lips cracking a slight crooked smile. "Hey," he says, as if he feels it too—as if even though they have been together these past few weeks, this is the first moment that they're really seeing each other again.

She offers him a smile in return. She can feel a blush rising up in her cheeks. "Hey," she says back, the barest hint of a laugh in the back of her throat.

This time she is the one to close the distance, to deepen the kiss, her fingers pressing into his back and her body strumming back to life as the blood rushes through her limbs. She has never felt love as a more powerful force than this, the kind of love that doesn't need words or qualifiers or questions, the kind of love that just _is_.

They may be broken beyond repair. They may carry scars, seen and unseen, that will never fade away. But there is something beautiful in this knowledge—if they can endure this, they can endure anything. They have been tested, time and again, and yet here they are—finding each other, the two survivors, strong in their own right, stronger when they are side by side.

It is the first time she lets herself think that maybe this was meant to be. Ever since she can remember it has felt like she is stealing something, like she is taking over someone else's story, rewriting someone else's life. But maybe every horror they survived, every heart-stopping moment and intolerable pain, was meant to lead them right here. They have both changed so tremendously since they met, but they have grown into each other, like roots pushing into the ground. This is their new foundation. This is the only thing left that is permanent, untouchable, _theirs_.

A siren wails somewhere in the distance. Peter stiffens, but when MJ pulls away from him, there's a little smile on her face. His expression is apologetic, and she is sure she will see that same expression a thousand and one times before their lives are over, but it is a considerably small price to pay for everything else.

She cocks her head toward the sound. "Go get 'em, tiger."

His face splits into a grin, goofy and uninhibited. "You're something else," he says. He kisses her, a sloppy, happy burst of a good-bye, and by the time she opens his eyes, there is only sidewalk where he was standing.

She crosses her arms against the cold and looks up at the sky, waiting to see the telltale red and blue streak. She remembers growing up and being so afraid that she would grow up to be ordinary; and then, after the growing up, being afraid that nothing would ever be ordinary again. But she has found this peculiar and fitting common ground between these fears. Now nothing will ever be ordinary, but nothing will ever be too hard to bear.

A moment later she sees him zip out of the alley. He whoops as he goes, saluting her with his free hand, and she laughs out loud on the sidewalk. When he disappears she starts to walk, a smile still lingering on her lips as she heads back to the apartment, feeling the kind of excitement she thought she would never feel after her younger years. It's as if the air around her is charged, electrified with a new beginning. She may never be able to shake off the past, but today she comes a little closer. Today she starts a new adventure. Today she loves Peter Parker, and he finally loves her back.

* * *

This chapter is so long that if I printed it, rolled up all the pages and hit somebody with it, I could probably murder them.

That being said, this is the last chapter. I am, however, posting an epilogue. I will not reveal anything about it except that it's going to be posted as another chapter on this story sometime before the fourth of July ... to the people who have been reading since the beginning, as of the fourth it will officially be one long and crazy year I've been writing in The Amazing Spiderman universe. I am completely floored by the people who stuck around this long, and so grateful to anyone who is reading at all. This has been one of the strangest, most amazing years of my otherwise not-so-noteworthy life, and I don't think I would have been able to handle it all if I weren't writing these stories, and getting to know all of you.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go outside and SEE THE SUN AGAIN.


	25. Epilogue

**Perpendicular**

* * *

**EPILOGUE**

Two Years Later

"If you open that door, Peter Parker, I swear to _god_, I will murder you."

Peter nudges the door with his foot, just enough so that it gives an inch, creaking audibly. Immediately he hears the rustle of fabric, and the noise of MJ squealing in protest.

"_Peter!_"

"Aw, come on." A grin splits across his face. He isn't really going to open the door. Over the course of his life he's grown out of a lot of things, but he doubts that teasing MJ will ever get old. "You don't really believe in that old wives' tale, do you?"

MJ replies without missing a beat: "If you want to _have_ any tales about your old wife, you will keep that door shut."

Peter sighs, loudly enough for her to hear, and leans against the wall that is separating the two of them. It's half past nine, and he's been dressed for at least an hour. It was MJ's idea to rent a tux—_the only thing sexier than spandex_, she had quipped—so Peter had obliged, but now he is itching at the too-tight collar and the stiff sleeves, wishing he had something less uncomfortable to wear. Which is probably a little ironic considering his usual getup.

Just then Aunt May's head pokes out of the door. Peter startles in alarm at the severity of her expression.

"It's bad luck to see the bride before the wedding," she chastises him.

He throws his hands up in mock surrender. "Alright, alright, I'll go."

Aunt May's expression softens slightly. "She looks beautiful," she says, glancing back.

Peter smiles easily at this. "I know."

* * *

On the first day of classes his junior year in college, Peter walked to class feeling sorry for himself. He was late, but that wasn't particularly unusual for him. It's just that this time it was because some punk had made off with the skateboard after he abandoned it to go stop a burglary—which was only typical. He saves an innocent person's stuff from getting looted, and in return he gets his only socially acceptable form of transportation swiped out from under him.

There were plenty of other reasons to be feeling sorry for himself that day—no sleep, the existential angst of having a secret identity, not to mention the _torture_ of seeing Gwen across the hall every other day—but when he stalked toward the English room, the skateboard was the slight primarily on his mind.

Just before he reached the room he heard the slap of sneakers across the hardwood of the otherwise abandoned hall. He turned around at the racket, to see a girl with bright red hair and blisteringly red cheeks gasping behind him, making a break for the same room he was headed toward.

"Chill pill," he muttered under his breath as she passed.

He wasn't expecting the girl to stop short, her beat up converse skidding on the floor. "Ex_cuse_ me?"

Peter stood there blinking at her. He hadn't meant for her to hear. "Uh."

"Listen, jerk," she said, rounding on him and pointing a menacing finger at his chest. Peter had to stifle a derisive laugh—no matter how tall she tried to hold herself, the top of her head barely reached his chin. "I just ran seventy blocks to get here and I'm in _no_ _mood_ for some snide comment from the peanut gallery."

Before Peter could construct any sort of response, she pushed back her admittedly sweaty hair behind her with an indignant whip, and stalked into the English room. Shaking his head, Peter waited a moment for her to clear the doorway, and then followed suit.

"Excellent," the professor drawled as he entered. "I was about to explain to Miss Watson here that the rest of the class has already partnered up for our online discussion boards."

Peter followed the professor's gaze to the angry redhead from not two seconds earlier. When his eyes caught hers, her eyebrows immediately furrowed into a scowl.

"You two will be partnered up for the remainder of the semester."

Peter nodded at the professor, making his way to the back of the room, but not before catching the girl engaged in what might have been the most melodramatic eye roll he had ever borne witness to. And of course, because of Murphy's Law, the only seat left would be the one right next to _her_. He ducked down his head, but he could feel the girl's scowl on him the whole way down the aisle. _Great_, he thought to himself. One more grievance to add to his already multiplying list.

As soon as the professor gave them a ten minute break to discuss their plans for the discussion board, the girl gave him one cursory glance and then engaged in picking off her purple nail polish with her thumb.

"I'm MJ," she said, glumly.

"Peter." He extended his hand out to shake, but if he was hoping for a chance to get off to a better start, it was dashed when she completely ignored him. Instead she rifled through her backpack, revealing a mess that rivaled Peter's own: scraps of papers, a bunch of play books, a bright purple planner whose pages were dented and stained. He took his hand back and tried again. "So what's MJ stand for?"

"Mary Jane," she said. She found the notebook she was looking for and set it on her desk with a thunk. She turned and finally looked at him, and for a brief moment he was struck by how huge her eyes were, big and green and demanding. With the red cheeks and the short stature there was something childish about her, or innocent, maybe, but just as soon as Peter had this thought she opened her mouth and said in an unnecessarily blunt manner, "I have a boyfriend."

Peter shifted uncomfortably in his chair, looking away from her. "So what?"

She tucked a strand of red hair behind her ear, and it immediately slipped and cascaded back down over her face. "He goes to Yale."

"That's … that's great. Good for him."

"Sorry. I'm just saying, because last time I had a partner in an English class he was totally hitting on me and it was really uncomfortable, so normally I try to pair up with girls. But, well." She gestured at him lamely.

He stared at her, bewildered. Of course, this girl didn't know him—she had no reason to understand that only was Peter uninterested, but that he would never _be_ interested, even if he wanted to. The force that pulled him to Gwen was disastrously unshakeable. They may not have spoken in two years, but she was still the first thought he had when he woke up in the morning, the last he had when he fell asleep at night, and the mere sight of her unlocking the door to her apartment was enough to send him into an existential tailspin that left him sulking for days.

And even if it weren't for Gwen, it was more than a little obnoxious for this Mary Jane to think that she was so irresistible herself that she had to stop him from drooling all over her.

"I honestly don't think we're going to have a problem," he said, hoping to knock her down a peg.

She straightened her posture prissily. "Well, good," she said, sounding just a tad defensive. Maybe he shouldn't have been so harsh. But before he could find some way to soften his words, she peered at him suspiciously. "You know, you actually look kind of familiar."

Peter only shrugged. "I don't recognize you from anywhere."

"Huh." She glanced up at the board, squinting to read the assignment. Peter followed her gaze.

"_A Midsummer Night's Dream_," she read out loud, and then her face burst into a smile so unexpected and bright that Peter might have forgotten that mere seconds ago she had found multiple ways to backhandedly insult him. "Hah! I just took a Shakespeare intensive for drama majors, this assignment's gonna be a breeze."

Somehow Peter doubted this. "Great," he said, already betting that this semester would seem like the longest one yet.

She pulled out a copy of the play, already annotated with messy handwriting and creased post-it notes. "Face it, jackass," she said, pushing the play across her desk so he could see. "You just hit the jackpot."

* * *

Peter forfeits his spot by the dressing room door, heading for the exit to get some fresh air. It's a little church that they're in, one that neither of them are even vaguely affiliated with, but the wedding is small and the church was happy to oblige on a weekday morning.

Peter leaves out the front door and is hit by a wall of city noise. It's bustling and grating, but somehow perfect for clearing his head. Not that his head is in particular need of clearing—Peter has been confident for a long time now that this day would come, no matter the trials and obstacles that led them here. Still, there is something about the month of September, about the cool wind and the subtle shift of the city, that makes him that much more sure. September is the month of beginnings, and he and MJ are ready for theirs.

He leans against the wall of the church, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. Maybe he's a little nervous. Call it rotten luck, or maybe just the _Parker_ luck, but he can't name a single important event in his life that hasn't been somehow interrupted by a super villain, a bank robbery, or some sort of ridiculous extenuating circumstance. He ditched his own college graduation to yank workers out of a burning warehouse. He missed Aunt May's birthday to help round up genetically altered animals from the Central Park Zoo. The very _moment_ he'd planned to propose to Gwen—

Well. It's not often that he thinks about her these days, but there it is, inevitably wedging its way in.

"Peter. The minister was wondering if you wanted him to have a copy of your vows."

He turns to his aunt. "A copy?"

Aunt May nods patiently. Her hair is done up elegantly, and she is dressed in pastel greens and pinks, flushed with the kind of joy that he wishes he saw on her face more often. Thankfully Mary Jane always seems to have a knack for drawing it out of her.

"Peter," she says, glancing at his tuxedo, as if there are secret pockets in it where something might be hiding. "Tell me you didn't lose your vows."

"I didn't write any."

"You didn't _write_ any?" Aunt May repeats, her voice catching at the end of the question. She glances worriedly back at the church, and then to him, scolding, "The ceremony is going to start any minute."

Peter waves her off, smiling at her affectionately. "I'll be fine," he says, and he knows it's true. The thing about being in love with a girl like Mary Jane and having a night job as a masked super freak is that it's impossible to have a Plan A, or even a Plan B or C—the two of them are unpredictable, always keeping each other on their toes, and it would seem forced and trivial to try and change that now by trying to capture it all in words.

Besides, he doesn't need a piece of paper to remind him how he feels about Mary Jane. One look at her is all it will take.

* * *

There was one word that frequently popped into Peter's head whenever he saw Mary Jane that first year he knew her, and it wasn't a nice one.

"Cockblock?" Gwen guffawed when Peter finally expressed his concern. "Jeez, Peter, you'd think you could keep it in your pants for one night."

"It _isn't_ just one night," Peter replied, his face hot with embarrassment. He wished he just hadn't said anything, but now that it was out there, in the open, he might as well commit. "It's just that every time I come over she's here. Sitting on your couch. Sleeping on your floor. _Using my toothpaste_—"

"She's my best friend," Gwen defended her. She leaned forward, arching her back and tiptoeing gracefully to peck him on the mouth. "You two could maybe just learn to get along? Spare me for an hour or two."

"_Toothpaste_."

"She said it was an accident. Let it goooo," Gwen pleaded, crossing the room to stretch out on the couch. She raised an eyebrow suggestively. Gwen was one of the few people he knew whose eyebrows were capable of moving independently of each other, which was something he only ever noted because that eyebrow raise usually meant good things for him. "Besides, we're alone right now, aren't we?"

"Not for long," he said, maybe a little unfairly—but then, before either of them could so much as remove a sock, he heard the doorknob jiggling and the sound of Mary Jane's voice in the hallway: "Let me in! It's freezing!"

Peter froze, his face an inch away from Gwen's. "I'm going to kill her," he declared in a grave voice.

"_Guys!_ I hear you in there."

"Peter," said Gwen, swatting at him.

"I mean it," he said, as Gwen wriggled out from under him and adjusted the seams to her sweater so she could unlock the door.

It was their senior year of college, and even though Peter had plenty to complain about in the Mary Jane department, his life had otherwise drastically improved. He couldn't have imagined three years before that he and Gwen could ever be together, that they would even find some semblance of closure, let alone happiness, and yet here they were—every bit as in love, every bit as crazy about each other as they were for those brief few weeks they actually dated in high school. He hadn't imagined it, hadn't put Gwen on some inaccessible pedestal or built it up in his mind to be something more than it was. They were simply meant to be together, and it seemed to him now, looking back, that it would always have happened no matter how hard they tried to resist.

And maybe it would have felt exactly the same way it did in high school, if it weren't for the only major change that occurred in Gwen's life during their time apart: Mary Jane.

"I can't believe you two were neighbors your entire lives and never figured out you went to the same _school_," Gwen said incredulously, the day she was packed and leaving for a Thanksgiving trip with her family.

Peter shrugged. "Yeah, well." What he doesn't say is that he never bothered to get to know the neighbors because they were always hollering and making a racket at weird hours of the night. Mary Jane's house was the sole reason he saved up money for a speaker, and then eventually noise-canceling headphones.

"She usually spends Thanksgiving with me," said Gwen, looking a little ill at ease. "But we're traveling."

"You never invited _me_ to Thanksgiving."

"Yeah, well, my stepdad never tried to arrest MJ in an ass-hugging circus outfit either, so."

Gwen left that night for upstate New York, and Peter took the subway to spend Thanksgiving with Aunt May. It was surprisingly uneventful as far as holidays went. For once the city had the decency not to explode at its seams with gang activity or bomb threats, and Peter actually got to enjoy a full meal without making any awkward apologies and trying to fit turkey and four helpings of mashed potatoes into spandex.

Peter might have spent the whole night in the warmth of the house if Aunt May hadn't noted that there wasn't any milk in the fridge. She never would have asked him to go out and grab some, but that was the thing about Aunt May—she didn't ask for anything. Figuring he could be back in less than five minutes if he jogged over to the corner mart, Peter darted out into the cold, not even bothering with a coat.

"—worthless, and _stupid_."

Peter stopped in his tracks on the porch. It was not the first time he had heard a commotion from the neighbors' house, but it was the first time he was close enough to an open window to hear what was being said. Against his better judgment he paused, barely able to hear Mary Jane's reply:

"You're drunk. Sit down."

Her father's words were slurred and unintelligible: "Wha'd'you even come back for?"

"I honestly couldn't tell you," MJ snapped back, and Peter immediately thought of Gwen that same morning, her fingers wrapped around the handlebars of her suitcase, an inexplicable anxiety on her face.

"Bitching and moaning all the time. Think you're something special? Jus' like your mother, running around Manhattan like a _tramp_—"

"You don't talk about my mother like that. You don't talk about her _ever_."

"Then go. Door's open. Jus' leave again," her father yelled, "get the _fuck_ out."

"Gladly." Peter heard the sound of a zipper, of boots slapping against hardwood floor. He shouldn't have been, given the nature of the conversation, but he was somehow stunned when her front door flew open and he saw an angry whip of red hair. He didn't move—it was too late to pretend he wasn't standing there, but Mary Jane didn't even see him.

"I hope you _rot_ in here," she screamed, slamming the door behind her.

Peter opened his mouth guiltily, intending to reveal himself, maybe to say her name or ask if she wanted to come in. It didn't end up mattering. She was so preoccupied with leaving, shrugging on a down coat and hoisting her bag over her shoulder, that she didn't even notice him there.

He watched wordlessly as she made her way down the street. She was so little that her purposeful steps seemed comically large. He stared after her, wondering where on earth she could be going.

"Peter?"

He turned to see Aunt May in the doorway. Her expression was weary and resigned—the kind of look he had seen far too often in the last few years, usually when she heard the blare of sirens and knew there was nothing she could do to stop Peter from leaving.

"He's only been getting worse," Aunt May commented, looking into MJ's front window, where the curtains were yellowed and frayed.

Peter still felt too stunned by the entire brief episode to move. "That was Mary Jane," he said, glancing down to the street toward the block where she disappeared.

Aunt May nodded, holding a hand to her chest, her fingers tracing the seams of her sweater. "It's a shame."

She cast a lingering glance at Mary Jane's house before she headed back inside, leaving the door open for Peter to follow. But Peter was paralyzed. He thought of every late night blasting his music, every time he ever shoved his headphones in his ears as he studied or edited photos, every eye roll and groan aimed in the direction of the neighbor's window.

_That was Mary Jane_.

Peter didn't see her again until the next week, but he looked for her almost every day. He lingered by the mailbox, lingered on the porch, spent as much time as he could outside to see if she might emerge from the house again, because if she wasn't there, then where else could she be? The dorms were closed and from the looks of things Gwen was her closest friend.

"What's the matter with you?" Gwen asked, the concern evident in her voice when she came back from upstate. He loved Gwen, but he hated the way she would worry, the way her eyes would sometimes do this unconscious sweep of his body like she was accounting for all of him. He hated to burden her that way. "Did something happen while I was gone?"

He opened his mouth to say no, to reassure her before she leapt to conclusions, but what came out instead was, "Is Mary Jane's dad an alcoholic?"

Gwen's eyebrows lifted just slightly in surprise. "You didn't know?"

"So he is."

Gwen pursed her lips, looking at the door MJ so frequently burst into unannounced. "It's not really my place to tell you about it. MJ's very … she doesn't tell people about him."

"Is that why she's always over here? During the holidays and the breaks?"

"Peter," Gwen interrupted, looking exasperated. "Just—yes. Yes, that's why. But please don't bring it up in front of her, okay?"

"He doesn't—like—" Peter almost didn't want to ask, and he could tell by the way Gwen was twisting her lip that she didn't want him asking, either, but he needed to know. "He doesn't _hit_ her or anything?"

"No." Gwen shook her head definitively. "He doesn't. He—"

"Hey, Gwen!" A voice squealed from the hallway. MJ walked through the open door, looking red-cheeked and panting from the cold. She glanced at Peter and scowled. "Hey, dork squad."

"Hey," said Peter, his voice soft, completely throwing off the rhythm of their usual snarky banter.

MJ slowed her step, the scowl dissipating, looking over to Gwen. "Are you …"

"Hey, MJ," said Gwen, extending her arms to hug MJ and recovering from Peter's slip. MJ embraced her willingly, her eyes still trailing Peter with apparent bewilderment. "Did you have a good Thanksgiving?"

MJ's lie was so effortless that Peter almost found himself believing it. "Yeah, it was great. How were your cousins?"

Peter should have moved, should have busied himself with helping Gwen unpack or found some kind of snack in the fridge, but instead he was staring at the two of them as they talked, MJ's demeanor so easy and carefree. _I saw you_. _I _saw_ you_.

At Gwen's warnings, Peter never brought it up, at least not in front of MJ. But he always remembered it—the words her father screamed that night, the way she tore out of there with her suitcase already packed, the way she must have already known her father wasn't worth her time, but tried anyway. The time came when MJ had to give up her little hole of a sublet in Brooklyn and mentioned moving back to Queens with her father, and before Gwen even opened her mouth to suggest it, Peter determined that the spare closet in their apartment already belonged to her.

"She can't go back there," Peter asserted, and watched Gwen's shoulders slump with relief, as if she had expected some kind of battle before Peter could be won over on the idea.

MJ moved in the next month, carting three giant suitcases worth of clothes, a mattress, and not much else of use. Not a day went by that she didn't irritate the living crap out of him, but not a day went by that he regretted her moving in—at some during those years he and Gwen had assumed some kind of wordless pact, that while they were protecting each other, they would protect MJ, too.

* * *

There is one part of being with Mary Jane Watson that Peter might never get used to.

"Are you Jane Watson's brother?"

Peter blinks, looking down to find a chubby-faced girl in braces staring up at him with a hopeful expression. "Uh," he manages.

The girl holds up an issue of the _Daily Bugle_ gossip section, pushing it into Peter's line of vision. "Jane Watson," she repeats, pointing at the picture—and sure enough, there is MJ on the front page, in a pair of old jeans and some funky printed top that she had been wearing when they stopped the other day for groceries. Peter is in the photograph too, just well-framed enough, apparently, that this small fan knew to accost him.

"I'm her—" He bites his tongue. There's no use in getting irritated, even though Jameson had some nerve putting _unidentified friend_ in the picture's caption. "I'm not her brother," he settles for instead.

The girl gives him a once-over, and then looks back down at the picture. "But this is you."

"Yeah."

She's looking past him now, into the church. "Is she _in_ there?"

"Um—"

"Oh my god, oh my _god_, I just have to meet her, I _love_ Bree—"

"Bree?" Peter echoes.

"Her character! On TV!"

Peter has only ever seen one episode because MJ forbade him from watching anything more—_I hate watching myself on screen, it's weird_, had been the excuse—but he has some rudimentary knowledge of the teeny-bopper series she was cast in, playing the bitchy ring leader of a group of sorority girls in some made-up college in New York. It isn't even that the series was all that popular, or that her character was one of the main ones in the cast. Peter knows virtually nothing about fashion, but apparently MJ has an offbeat sense for it that caught on, and led to these weird little pockets of fame, including and not limited to a fourteen-year-old girl stalking him outside of a church five minutes before he is set to walk down the aisle.

The girl is still blabbering on, exclaiming about characters and plots and shoes, when Peter feels the hairs on the back of his neck start to rise. The feeling is compelling and immediate and drowns out the girl completely.

_Oh, god. Not today_.

He has to tell MJ. Whatever it is that has gone wrong in this city that apparently isn't doing him _any_ favors, he can't just abandon her two seconds before they're supposed to be married, not without an explanation.

Ignoring the girl, he turns to the church doors, just in time to see them burst open.

"Peter," MJ calls out.

He is paralyzed by the sight of her. MJ has always been stunning, has always had a charm and ease in her smile that made her beautiful without ever needing to try, but he has never been more floored by her than he is in this instant. She is radiant. Her hair cascades down in thick curls, her cheeks are rosy and her eyes bright. He can't believe she was afraid he might see the dress before the wedding—how could he possibly tear his eyes off of her long enough to notice anything else?

"It's Captain Johnson," she says, extending her cell phone out. "There's a huge pile-up on the GW Bridge."

He is already mapping out a route, calculating the time it will take him to get there. "Mary Jane," he says, starting an apology.

She pushes him lightly. "_Go_."

He knows that this will be the nail in the coffin on trying to uphold any kind of traditions on their wedding day, but he can't help himself: he leans forward and kisses her, deeply and quickly, pulling away before she even has the time to protest.

When he draws back and looks at her she's still a little breathless with surprise, her eyes wide on his.

He knows it's time to go, but he has to say it, because he doesn't say it near often enough: "God, you're beautiful."

The effect of his words is immediate, color flaring up in her cheeks like red ink blots on her skin. He hopes there will never come a day when he isn't able to make Mary Jane blush.

* * *

By the time the Green Goblin hit the scene, Peter was all too familiar with close calls. He didn't have enough fingers and toes to count the times he barely avoided his own demise, let alone those of people close to him—and with the Goblin on the loose, it was a free for all. There wasn't a way to protect anybody because there weren't any targets. Everyone in Manhattan was fair game.

Well, everyone with the exception of Spiderman, because for reasons Peter couldn't understand back then, the Goblin wanted nothing more than to make him suffer. Peter was more careful than ever to protect his identity, especially after he found Norman Osborn out. He was close—_too_ close—but what terrified him the most was that MJ was even closer. And while they were all living in the same apartment it was a manageable fear, because he would see her come home every night, quiet and listless and not quite herself, but _alive_, and that was enough as far as Peter was concerned.

"I messed up. I _fucked up_, Gwen."

"Peter, slow down, what's going on?"

"Tell me Mary Jane is with you. Tell me you've heard from her."

The pause on the other end of the line was unendurable. "No," said Gwen carefully.

Peter ripped the mask off of his face and threw it in the alley. He knew he needed to be careful, that this was the wrong place and time to letting his emotions get the better of him, but those thoughts were far from the front of his mind.

"_Shit_," he exclaimed, pacing back and forth, his unease quickly giving way to panic like a molten ball in his stomach.

Gwen's voice was firm when she spoke again—only Peter could sense the fear in it, only Peter because he knew her the way nobody ever had. "Peter, _what's going on?_"

"I—I—" He didn't even know how to explain himself, how to confess to this. The noises, the sirens and the screaming and the car horns and the _footsteps _on the pavement, the gasps of other people's _breaths—_there was nothing in this city he couldn't hear, and yet he was straining, desperate, listening for _her_. "I lost her. I lost Mary Jane, I can't find her anywhere—"

"What happened? Where were you?" Gwen asked steadily, the way a 911 operator would speak to a hysterical person.

"There was an attack—the Goblin—by the old apartment," Peter stammered, "and Mary Jane was there, we were talking, and I had to leave, I—I was keeping an eye out for her, and then just like that she was gone."

Gwen's voice was like a lifeline, the only thing keeping him grounded, the only organized thought left in his head. "How long ago?"

_Forever._ He forced himself to consider it and said, "I don't know. An hour, maybe two."

"Where have you looked? Did you check the apartment?"

It struck Peter as a ridiculous notion that she would even ask. "No," he said. "She doesn't live there anymore."

"She still has the key."

Peter was well aware of this. He just couldn't believe that MJ would let herself back into the old apartment and then ignore call after call on her phone; she was never away from it, always checking for casting calls, for audition notices, for e-mails from directors and producers or whatever gig was paying her bills that week.

"Maybe she lost her phone?"

The idea crossed Peter's mind, but the longer it took to find her the more drastic and extreme his thoughts became. He imagined her in a hospital bed, torn up by one of the explosives—imagined her lying somewhere, defenseless, let in the street—and before he could blink and shut the image out, he imagined her on a stretcher, getting wheeled away too slowly, her face pale and her skin lifeless and that perpetual smirk on her lips set in a final, grim line.

His hands were quaking, his palm sweaty on the phone. She was just trying to talk to him. She seemed so unlike herself, so absent and indifferent. He could have tried to listen, could have been a friend to her for once, but what had he done? Yelled at her. Urged her to leave the city. _Abandoned her and let her disappear._

"Peter?"

His lips are gnashing, curled under his teeth. "What if she's …"

"No. Peter? _No_. Go to the apartment, okay?"

He swallowed hard. He wasn't ready to open that door to an empty room, wasn't ready to accept that it might really be over, that he might have made the kind of mistake that would haunt him forever and cost Mary Jane her life.

He hung up the phone and fished his mask out of a puddle of snow, shoving it on without even feeling the bite of the ice. He left his street clothes on a rooftop, and reluctantly swung back to retrieve them, knowing he couldn't show up to the apartment in anything else. He had to travel the last few blocks on foot, running just fast enough that people started to look around in alarm—these days when people ran, it was usually not to something, but _from_ something.

He could almost ignore out the dread still swelling painfully in his chest, could almost outrun it into oblivion, until he hit the elevator.

_All I am to you is Gwen's stupid friend_.

The words are loud in his ear, the guilt crushing. He had dismissed her. He had treated the remark the same way he treated all of the critical comments she made about herself, by blowing them off and not giving her the satisfaction of whatever she was fishing for. But this had been different. This wasn't just some complaint about a body part or a boy or the way she was convinced one of her eyes was slightly smaller than the other.

She had been reaching out to him, or at least she had been trying. And what had Peter done, besides alienate her even further?

And now she was _gone_.

The truth was, Mary Jane was like a sister to him. He knew it sounded cheesy, but it's not like he ever meant to say it out loud, or even admit it to himself. It's just that she seemed—naïve, almost. Bullheaded and stubborn and determined, so much so that Peter wondered if she was ever aware of the danger she put herself in, or if she just didn't care. How many times had he swooped by on his rounds to make sure she was getting back from one of those stupid nighttime promotional gigs and just barely stopped whatever goon he found following her? And how many unknowable times had he _not_ been there when one of the goons caught up?

There was so much about Mary Jane that was already fragmented, thinly veiled by sarcasm and melodrama and teetering high heels. Life hadn't always dealt her a fair hand, but she just kept on throwing herself at it, daring it to slight her again. Mary Jane wasn't stupid by any means, but she was a risk-taker, without always meaning to be—and while there was a part of Peter that admired her for it, there was a much larger part of him that couldn't stand it. She reminded him of a bird, sometimes, the kind that used to wake him up by repeatedly flying into his bedroom window, thinking it could get inside—that after a hundred or so times of beating its beak and flailing backwards that the glass might just miraculously disappear so it could fly inside.

That was the thing about Mary Jane: even in the face of failure she was unstoppable, unflappable, undeterred. Unfortunately, hers was the kind of endurance that came with its own set of consequences.

So yes, Peter had always had an eye out for her, even when they fought and pissed and moaned at each other, the same way he would if he'd ever had a kid sister of his own. And over the years she had become such a fixture in his life that she had wormed herself into the dynamic of everything—and it could just be because Peter didn't have enough of a life to get any friends of his own, but if he had to honestly answer, Mary Jane was the closest thing to a best friend he had, besides Gwen.

And now he had failed her. It only took a minute, maybe less.

The elevator doors parted open and Peter stood there for a moment, still breathless, his feet planted to the molding carpets. He knew she wasn't in there, but that didn't change the fact that this was the last place he could look.

Opening the door was an unfathomable truth. The kitchen was empty, and one quick sweep told him that the rest of the apartment was, too. He shut the door behind him, and pressed his back to it, trying to steady himself.

_You, me, Gwen. We'll leave the city. _

The urgency in her voice, the way her cheeks brightened in the cold, the distance between them that she unconsciously closed as she spoke. Everything was heavy with disbelief, like the blood was too thick in his veins, like he couldn't lift a foot to walk forward. He needed to reach for his phone. He needed to call Gwen and tell her, tell her now, before the shame and the grief consumed him and he wouldn't be able to tell her anything at all.

Just as he reached into his pocket he heard the door to Mary Jane's old room creak open. She almost seemed like a ghost to him, pale and puffy-eyed, blinking at him in surprise. He stared back at her, his knees weak with relief, sucking in the kind of breath that plunged all the way to his stomach.

There were the beginnings of a hundred competing words trying to burst out of his throat_, _but just then he felt a surge of hot adrenaline, unfamiliar and pulsing magnified. "What the _hell_, Mary Jane."

Her eyes were defiant. They always were. "What?"

He crossed the living room without consciously deciding to, because _look_ at her—she was fine, she was better than fine, she was holed up in this apartment the entire time while he turned over every _god damn rock _in New York looking for her. She jutted her chin out at him, her spine ramrod straight, all five feet of her a picture of wrath.

It took him a second to recover, and when he did he felt a carnal kind of rage. "I had _no idea_ what happened to you, have you been sitting in here the whole _fucking time?_"

This seemed to rattle her, her chin just quivering slightly, but it wasn't enough. She had no idea what she just put him through. She had _no idea_ the lengths he went to keep her safe, no idea how he had tortured himself, not just today, but every _week_, every other _night_, because the world just seemed to have it in for her or maybe she just seemed to have it in for the world, because not a fucking day went _by_ that he wasn't worrying about her, somewhere in the back of his mind.

"You _ran_." He could hear the devastation in her voice, piercing him like a weapon. "You ran away, what was I supposed to—"

"Pick up the _damn phone_, for Christ's sake," he yelled, because he couldn't stand to look at her, at that defensive, wide-eyed, betrayed look on her face, knowing that it was all because of him. He didn't want this responsibility. He didn't want this burden, this guilt, but she was _here_, and somehow that was enough to splinter him. She still stared at him with that same unyielding gaze and suddenly he couldn't bear it one second longer, that she could be so cool and unaffected by his undoing—he needed to make her understand, needed her to _feel_ the panic like bile in the back of his throat, the senselessness, the pain, and so without thinking he reached out and grabbed her by the shoulders.

"I thought you were _dead_."

It was so easy to hold her there. She was so uncharacteristically fragile in that moment between his hands, her breath and her fear so palpable and close.

He would never forget the way the fight left her eyes, the way she jerked back from him, her body shrinking into itself until she seemed impossibly slight. The way she bleated an apology, her face ashen, her feet unsteady as she backed into the wall. He cringed and drew his hands away, pressing them at his sides.

_How could he?_ He knew where she came from, what kind of man her father was. And while he knew he would never hurt her, never let _anybody _hurt her, she had no way of knowing that.

Just when he thought his shame could not possibly overwhelm him any more, she reached up to swipe off tears that seemed to spring out of her eyes with impossible speed. He had seen Mary Jane angry, had seen her elated and furious and miserable, but never in all the years he knew her had he ever seen her _cry_.

For a few seconds he was too stunned to move, watching her face crack open. She was almost unrecognizable, red and crumpling and shaking her head at him. She had always been so passionate, so above the fray, so gutsy and brash—he had never considered her capable of this kind of weakness, and it scared him to see it now, scared him to know he was the one responsible for it.

He took a step forward. "I didn't meant to—jeez, Mary Jane," he tried, because he couldn't think of a single thing to say that could possibly excuse what he did.

Her words were slippery with tears. "It's fine, it's fine," she said, hugging her arms to her chest.

It wasn't. He couldn't help but stare, seeing this version of Mary Jane, stripped bare—no armor of snark or bravado to hide behind, just small and uncertain and scared. She had never let him see it before, but he had always had some suspicion of what lay just under the surface, in the way she was always trying _so hard, _harder than she should ever have to, and in the occasional far away look in her eyes, when she thought nobody was watching.

It was the only thing that made her human to him, those brief moments when he saw the realness of her: when she would adjust that one stubborn cowlick in her hair in the mirror over and over, or when she would sit on the couch biting the whites of her nails as she repeated the same lines from a monologue, or when she would stand in front of a pot of cooking spaghetti and stare out the window with this unspecific brand of longing.

And here it was, in full force, bursting in front of him. He couldn't think of a single time he ever hugged Mary Jane before, or even so much as patted her on the back, but his body reacted before the rest of him did. She didn't protest, pressing her face into his shirt; the sniffling stopped so abruptly that he thought she might not have even been breathing, she was so was quiet with his arms wrapped around her shoulders.

This is what he had meant, when he grabbed her earlier. To feel her there, the presence of her, to reassure himself that she was _alive_ and he had one less disaster on his conscience. He could feel her heart beating through her skin, could hear it pulsing in her chest, heavy and fast.

When she pulled back abruptly he was almost surprised, rattled out of some comfort he hadn't meant to feel.

She wouldn't look at him, her hair swept over her eyes, her gaze on the floor. "I have to go."

She was gone faster than he could think to stop her.

* * *

It's dusk by the time Captain Johnson aims a grave and minute nod in his direction, dismissing him.

Peter doesn't linger. His relationship with the NYPD is rocky at best, and although nobody had it in them to stop him from helping this time, he won't test his limits.

The merciful part of wearing this mask is that once the danger has passed, he doesn't ever have to stick around. He doesn't have to stand by as they haul the shards of glass and the twisted metal of car hoods off the road, or listen as reporters hound the officers for information, for the number of injuries, for the death toll that even Spiderman couldn't prevent.

He thought in the beginning that he might become desensitized to this kind of tragedy. That if he swung in often enough, and did whatever he could to help, that eventually death would seem commonplace to him—not by any means acceptable, but not nearly as shocking or derailing as it was in those first few months that he started this masked vigilante gig.

The trouble is, it is every bit as horrifying the hundredth time as it is the first. Today there were probably more than a dozen people dead, most of them on impact, before he could even arrive on the scene. And while he was focused the entire time on the grueling tasks of fishing cars out of the water, balancing the ones teetering off the edge, and extricating victims from the wreckage, all the while he felt that same gut-wrenching, visceral horror—there is no worse feeling in the world than watching something terrible happen and knowing that there is _nothing_ he can do to stop it.

He has watched the life leave so many peoples' eyes in the past ten years. He has heard the last words of so many strangers, some of them pleading, some of them bitter, all of them etched into his consciousness forever. Today is no exception. He will carry this tragedy with him always, the way he has with every one before. There is little comfort in knowing he helped, when there were so many people he couldn't.

The church is empty when Peter arrives. He pushes the door open and is met by the overwhelming silence of the church walls, high and formidable and bare. He looks in the dressing room—the tuxedo he left on the floor is gone, and in its place are his street clothes, folded neatly with a piece of paper resting on the top.

He kneads his forehead with his fingers, exhaling a deep weariness. He doesn't want to read it. He doesn't want to have to acknowledge that he has let her down again, because he knows what's in that note—some tiny forgiveness, her way of understanding, of reassuring him that it's alright—and every time that happens he loves her more, and every time it happens he is afraid that someday it won't.

Her handwriting has always been sloppy. _I love you_, the note reads, and nothing more. Peter shuts his eyes and lets it fall back onto the pile.

* * *

Peter didn't worry about Mary Jane after she disappeared. He wasn't capable of extending his thoughts beyond his grief. He left the apartment the day Gwen died, left Mary Jane standing there in the foyer, and as far as he knew, neither of them ever came back.

The year that passed after Gwen's death was unendurable—just long, practiced intervals of feeling nothing disrupted with spasms of anguish that threatened to consume him. It was a miracle he defeated the Goblin, because he was in no shape to fight, had no ability to use any kind of logic except to move his muscles and try to make him _hurt_. Osborn eventually died at the hand of one of his own bombs, trapped under some rubble. Peter wondered if he might have been able to stop it, but he was so far gone in his misery that he honestly didn't dwell on it long.

He almost didn't recognize Mary Jane when he finally saw her on the subway that day. She seemed bony, almost, and her hair was so long, and her expression so slack. It was absurd, considering how well he knew her, that he had this strange feeling of misplacement—he couldn't figure out where he knew this girl from, this girl who looked so absent and sad.

The thing that compelled him to recognize her was an all-too-familiar feeling of unease: he had to protect her. Before he even fully realized who she was, the image of Harry came unbidden into his mind, busting into Peter's apartment with wild eyes and heart-wrenching accusations and a gun, looking for Mary Jane.

He had to warn her. That was why he tried to get her attention on the platform that day. He had no idea how long she had been in the city, but it was long enough—because if Peter had seen her, it was only a matter of time before Harry did, too.

He called out her name without thinking, and watched her eyes flit over to meet his.

There wasn't any way to anticipate the slam of blood stopping in his veins. He felt his heart lurch with enough intensity that it felt like it was taking up the space of his entire chest, watching the way her eyes widened into little moons on her face, at the tiny gasp and lift of her chest.

And then he was running, chasing after a subway whose doors were already starting to shut, knowing he wouldn't reach her but unable to stop himself from trying. "Mary Jane—" he called, and the doors snapped closed in his face but he kept running, pushing past bystanders and slapping his feet against the concrete until the train was sucked into the tunnel and there was nothing left but the tracks and the sight of the train's lights fading into the abyss.

He stood there, breathing hard, eyes still glued to the tunnel.

What _was_ that?

"Excuse you, asshole," somebody yapped at him.

Peter startled out of his trance. "I, uh—sorry," he managed, looking sheepishly back at the crowd of people he just shoved his way through. "Sorry. Sorry."

Within two minutes he was spandex-clad and swinging over every subway station he knew that her train would hit—he knew there was a chance she would grab a connecting one, but sure enough at the fourth stop she emerged, not two blocks from the building Peter was living in now. He settled on a ledge and watched her, feeling compelled, feeling thrilled, feeling a guilt that he couldn't even begin to explain.

He needed to warn her. He needed to orchestrate another coincidence, another meeting, so he could tell her about Harry and tell her to get out of the city.

But he didn't. Instead for two days he waited, and watched. Watched her leave for long morning runs that meandered around the park, watched her head to the theater in a familiar old pair of dance tights with a rip up the back of the left calf, even blew the last of his earnings from Jameson to buy a ticket and watch the show.

If Peter had to choose a moment that it started, it would be when the curtain came up on that show, and the lights filtered through the stage and illuminated her like a beacon. It was the first time he couldn't ignore it—the strange anxiety, the compulsion, the way he couldn't look away from her, remembering and appreciating every familiar gesture and angle of her face.

What he never told Mary Jane was that he left at intermission. That he couldn't bear one more second of the acute, intolerable ache of her presence, an ache that was only magnified by the weirdly secret nature of it. What had come over him? Why was he suddenly tongue-tied and at a loss for what to say, for a girl he had known for _years_—a girl he had fought with, laughed with, a girl who had once unabashedly walked into the kitchen and grabbed an apple he was eating right out of his hands on her way out the door?

That night, he decided. That night he would tell her to leave, and it would end this ache, this uncertainty, this growing turmoil in his heart once and for all.

* * *

Peter lets himself into the apartment, opening the door to dimmed lights and silence. He passes through their little kitchen, pulls out one of the chairs and takes a seat. The bedroom door is open but he's not quite ready to go inside.

He rests his head in his hands and looks at their little apartment, the place that they have made their home. It isn't anything fancy. They can afford better now between MJ's television work and Peter's new position at Stark Industries, but this is cozy and small and suits them just fine. He loves coming home to this place, to the smell of it, to the simplicity of it—he loves that there are traces of Mary Jane everywhere he looks, in the half-eaten yogurt perched on the counter, in the haphazardly organized pictures hung up on magnets on the fridge, in the lace curtains on the windows. He loves that there is one spare tiny room in the apartment that neither of them has touched, a room of possibility and promise, and that MJ remarked on one occasion after a glass and a half of wine was just sizable enough for a crib.

They are far from that future still, and he knows it. Look at them—even today, when they were supposed to commit their lives to each other, they couldn't manage to stay in one place long enough to say "I do." And he knows, he _knows_ that that isn't what commitment means—that the commitment isn't a piece of paper, or a few lousy words, but the way that Mary Jane leaves takeout boxes waiting for him in the kitchen, or secretly enrolls in a sewing class to learn how to manipulate spandex—but it doesn't change the fact that there are things right now that are out of their reach. Marriage, kids, an ordinary life. He wants it someday, and he knows she does too, but they are happy now, and that is more than he ever thought he could say about his life after taking up the mask.

Deciding he has sulked long enough, Peter gets up from the kitchen table and walks toward the bedroom, careful not too make too much noise—if Mary Jane hasn't found him by now, she could only be asleep. Sure enough when he walks in he finds her strewn out on the bed, a towel wrapped loosely around her and her hair still damp from the shower.

It is rare that he ever sees her like this, in a moment of complete unawareness. Even in her sleep she usually finds some way to sleep on her back or on the side facing him; she has grown used to the scars, but even though she rarely says anything about them, he can tell that she does her best not to let him see.

Peter will never understand why, the same way he might never explain the entire mystery that is Mary Jane. They both carry scars, but what are they besides evidence of what brought them here, what they have survived? He knows that hers don't fit whatever ideal of beauty she has always striven for, in a business that is unforgiving at best, but to him she has always been the kind of beautiful that makes society's standards irrelevant. It's the way she smirks, the way her eyes crinkle at the corners, the way she hums to herself when she's picking out fruit in the grocery store. It's her fierceness, her determination, and the way it is so often punctuated by a still almost childlike joy at simple things like running into a street performance at the park. It's a magnetic kind of energy that draws people in—Peter knows that the scars were an issue in several casting decisions Mary Jane was passed up for in her early days of television work, but he also knew it was only a matter of time before they saw past it, because there was something infectious about her that made her impossible to ignore.

There is one scar that is particularly more prominent than the others, raised and jagged against the pale of her skin. It is barely exposed by the towel and the lamplight, but it is the scar that Peter crosses the room and grazes with his fingers to wake her.

She stirs just barely, sighing in her sleep.

"Mary Jane," he says softly, leaning down and pressing his lips to it, to the uneven skin between her shoulder blades.

All of the scars serve as a reminder, but this one more than all the rest. He will never forget the torture of those too-slow moments he spent holding her in OsCorp, waiting for somebody to find them as her body went slack in his arms and her eyes slid shut. He had never felt so powerless in his whole life, still too weak from the electrocution to move, too weak to do anything but watch the blood pool on the white floors.

_Please_, he kept telling her, because hadn't he spent every waking moment of these last few months pleading her for things she couldn't give?

There were shards plunged into her back, small and deadly, but only one that even through the smoke and the whine of panic and anguish, Peter knew had the power to end her: right between her shoulder blades, plunged right beside her heart.

There was no way to know how deep it was, whether it had hit its mark, but she faded away so quickly that he had his answer. In his nightmares he still sees her head roll to the side, the curve of her cheek slack against his arm, the barest smile curving on her lips. In his life he had felt hopelessness, had felt immeasurable grief, but in that moment he was incapable of feeling anything at all: it was over. Everything was over now, Peter was

_finished_, and he would be gone some way or another long before they put Mary Jane in the ground.

Peter had no idea what kind of state he was in when Captain Johnson finally busted in and found them. It couldn't have taken too long. Harry was met by a team of officers on his way out of OsCorp and immediately gave himself up, and told the police where to find them. Peter will _never_ forgive Harry—never speak another word to him or look him in the eye, after what he did—but he knows that there was some shred of good left in Harry, and that small shred was Mary Jane. He thanks god for that, or Harry might have let her die in there that day, and Peter would have died with her.

Mary Jane stirs again, her eyelids fluttering open with a sharp intake of breath. For a moment her eyes search the room for him. Her smile is sleepy and slow.

"Hey, tiger."

He sits there on the side of the mattress, staring at her in the glow of the lamp, in an admiring disbelief of her. He reaches out, catching strands of her hair between his fingers, and says softly, "I love you, too."

* * *

Falling in love with Mary Jane Watson felt like the first few seconds of watching a car fly through an intersection, blowing a red light and coming straight for him. There was no time to prepare, only to brace himself for the impact, because after those first few times he spoke with her—after it was absolutely clear that she wasn't going anywhere, that nothing he could say would make her listen—Mary Jane became an inevitability. Every time he looked at her he hated himself a little more for not being able to overcome it, but there it was, the collision of her a little more brutal every time he tried to dismiss her.

She was like nothing and nobody, and still so many things at once. She had this quality of looking like a stranger to him from a distance, a quality that made it easy to imagine that he could detach himself from her and the unwelcome curiosity that compelled him to her, but then—then she would look up and her eyes would find him, and he could see that he had just as much power to undo her as she did him. Her face would come to life, her green eyes wide, the confidence and bravado suddenly chipped, and he knew without knowing that he was the only one she let see the truths she had spent years denying.

He knew how fiercely she protected herself, how she hid every weakness. How in their college years it manifested into the defensiveness, the whininess, the impulsiveness that used to define her. Now that they were older, now that she was much more adept at hiding the imperfections, he found himself loving her for them—he found himself favoring all of her quirks, admiring every mishap and coincidence and hardship that created her, this unlikely girl who was now the sharp focus of his muddled world.

It was strange to say the least, that they could be this much in love with each other after years of just barely being friend. Peter was grateful that they never tried to make it work in their younger days. He doubted he would have been able to handle her, because he was nowhere near able to fathom or understand the depths of her, and he doubted that MJ would have been ready to commit herself to any one person or idea after she had spent the first twenty years of her life avoiding it. It took trust, and it took time, but it was worth it, all the misunderstandings and angry words and lost chances that pulled them together.

He knew he was going to ask Mary Jane to marry him, knew the very night of the first Goblin impersonator attacks, when she was curled in his arms and asked in a quiet, careful little voice, "Please don't ask me to leave New York."

They were a far cry from being together, but Peter would always consider that instance one the one that forever altered the course of their lives. If he were a better person, he would have pushed her away. If he were a better person, he would have told her to leave the city, and he would have kept her safe.

But if he were a better person, he wouldn't be in love with Mary Jane.

He had planned a real proposal, of course. He didn't know why he bothered, because there seemed to be a higher power that found some great hilarity in Peter Parker ever making plans, but he planned it nonetheless. The opportunity was golden: whenever the city was quiet enough, Mary Jane would beg him to go for a swing, just one quick swing around the block that always turned into at least an hour of scaling the city (and usually ended in some various state of undress by the bedroom window when they finally snuck back home).

He meant to take her out one of those nights, to the rooftop of her old apartment building. He would take off the mask this time instead of waiting for her to do it, the way he did back then. He would tell her how ever since he met her, she had the power to bring out the best and the worst in him, the ability to make him appreciate the _living_ part of his life and not just the moments he was supposed to appreciate, but every moment in between. He would get down on knee, like in one of those movies MJ would either curl up and watch, the same ones she was so frequently auditioning for. In his imagination he would be eloquent and charming, maybe even suave.

What ended up happening was only typical: the blockbuster apocalypse movie set where MJ was working as a featured extra ended up getting rampaged by another one of OsCorp's genetically enhanced experiments gone wrong, and somewhere in between knocking the creature out and barely managing to swing through the set and grab Mary Jane in time as she plummeted off of the building they had her character on, he got it in his head that it would be a good idea to shout "Marry me!" just after he basically knocked the wind out of her mid-catch.

The wind was whipping her hair in a thousand directions so he couldn't see her face, but her silence was enough to make his stomach plummet.

"No!" she exclaimed. "Peter _Parker_—"

"I mean it," he said, slinging another web and deftly landing on a rooftop, one clear across the city from where he had actually _planned_ on doing this. "Marry me."

Mary Jane's buried her face in her hands, shaking her head, but not before he saw the blush rising up in her cheeks. "If this is some kind of joke, or some kind of _whim_, just because I almost bit it, then—"

"_No_. God, no, Mary Jane," he said, admittedly sounding like a crazy person, still breathless and panting and barely able to stand still. He ripped the mask off, hoping she could see the sincerity in his eyes. "I mean it."

"Peter," she said, in some mixture of embarrassment and misery. He could barely see her eyes peeking out from between her fingers.

He took a step toward her, reaching out to touch her hands, to tilt her chin up to face him. "In the second drawer down on my bedside table, under all the bills and the paperwork and the passports—there's a box, with a ring in it." She was staring up at him now, steady but hesitant, waiting for him to go on. "This isn't a whim, Mary Jane—I've known for a long time now that I want to spend the rest of my life with you."

For a moment she looked so self-conscious and thrown off by his words that it was almost laughable. She made the tiniest of incomprehensible noises leaned forward, pressing her forehead against his chest. He let her linger there for only a moment before he put he pulled back.

Windswept, mascara running, her eyes skittish and her hair in tangles, she was still so beautiful that it took his breath away.

He grabbed her hand. This was nothing like he had planned, and certainly nothing like the first time; he remembered proposing to Gwen all those years ago almost like it was a memory of somebody else's life. The sweet and reserved way she had told him yes, and then smiled and threw her arms around him, the ease and the contentedness of it.

Life with Mary Jane would never be like that. She would always be flighty and impulsive, always unpredictable, always feeling things too deeply and barely finding outlets to express them. She was honest and blunt and rough around her edges. She wasn't easy, she wasn't safe, but truly, Peter wouldn't have her any other way.

He said it one more time, firmly and slowly, squeezing her hand. "_Marry_ me."

Mary Jane's eyes looked misty for just the slightest beat, but he knew he had her. Even if she said no right now, even if they never made it down an aisle or said any vows or signed any papers, he knew he had her always.

In that instant she laughed out loud, strident and unexpected. She nodded and he could still see the laughter dancing in her eyes as she leapt up and collided with him, knowing that he was steady enough to catch her. She curled her legs around him and as she kissed him he could feel the grin curling on her lips. When she pulled away her face was flush with excitement.

"Yes," she said. "Yes, Peter Parker. I will marry you."

* * *

Mary Jane shut her eyes sleepily. "Come here," she said, gesturing to the empty space on the bed.

Peter hesitates. "Mary Jane," he starts. "About—about today—"

She interrupts him by hooking her arm around the crook of his elbow, guiding him down to the bed until he is laying beside her, still in his shoes and street clothes. As soon as his head hits the mattress she stretches and then curls her body into his, staring at him through sleepy lids.

This is what he looks forward to, what gets him through each day. The sweet relief of holding her, of listening to her breathe, of falling asleep beside her and knowing that no matter what else has gone wrong, she will be there in the morning when he wakes up.

"Listen," he starts. "I know—I pushed for this, and then I let you down, and—"

"It doesn't matter," she says, and he waits to hear a trace of doubt, or disappointment, but all he hears is a mild, happy lilt. "We'll get married tomorrow. Or next week. Or next year. I don't care—all I really want is right here."

He still feels an unshakeable pang of guilt. He knows Mary Jane, knows that there she was once a little girl the same way all little girls are, who dreamed of fairy tale weddings and cookie cutter romances, or even just the realistic expectation of having a groom who showed up to the wedding. And maybe he would just feel better if she yapped at him right now, because that's what anyone else would do, right?

"What about the white dress—the flowers, the cake, the whole … everything?" Peter asks, as she grazes her toes across his shins and her fingers start roaming under his shirt.

She smiles deliberately, coyly. "This is the whole everything," she says, kissing him lightly, the pressure of her fingertips deepening on his chest.

"Mary Jane," he sighs, half of him trying to apologize, the other half giving in to the warmth of her palms, sliding down to the hemline of his shirt. She persists, starting to tug it off of him, and she knows she has won when he leans in and kisses her, his hands roaming the uneven plane of her back, the towel somewhere long abandoned on the bedroom floor.

As the kiss deepens for a moment his thoughts are far away, behind and beyond him. The prick of a spider bite, the inconceivable desperation of his first love, the sad, sweet smile of Aunt May in the window, watching him walk up the porch. A girl with bright red hair and a loud mouth, a couch just big enough for three, a familiar table at an old pizza joint from back in the days when they were young and unfettered and free, or at least they thought they were.

And after the loss of it all, after the grief and the darkness, a burst of light—a pair of bright blue running sneakers lined up at the door, red strands of hair clogging the shower drain, the smell of lavender soap and curve of a knowing smile. The wedding dress he can see hanging patiently in the closet, the empty room beside them, the perfect, synchronous rhythm of their bodies and breaths and everything that has happened, everything that is yet to be.

Peter has had these inhuman abilities since he was seventeen years old, but this feeling, right now with her heartbeat thrumming through her skin, this is what it is like to be invincible. The world is crazy, and sometimes wicked, but let it be. Let it be anything it wants to be, and he'll take care of it, he will do the best he can—as long as he has Mary Jane, it will be worth every bump along the way.

* * *

Well, one year and one day after first starting this enormous glob of fanfiction, I am excited to say that I officially had my first meeting with a song publisher. It's just a baby step and he really is meeting with me to keep tabs on me, but holy smokes, this time last year I was getting politely kicked off publishers' porches by chipper receptionists with intercoms. Thanks to everyone who has been reading this and sticking around for my crazy adventures :). And hey, if you have an idea for a story you want to read, let me know! Because I literally would not have even thought of writing this, except a reviewer suggested it, and here we are, approximately 150,000 words later ... woops.


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